LIRRARY  or 

•No  Date 


BERKELEY 

LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY    OF 
CALIFORNIA 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 

PROFESSOR 

PAUL  BIGELOW  SCHAEFFER 

1893-1967 


i 


<S^L 


PETER  THE  GREAT 


Inilorm  with  "  PIITLR  THE  OREAT." 


^he  Romance  of  an  empress. 

CAl  JiERJMi   J I    OJ-    RC:>S/A. 

By  K.  Waliszewski. 
With  Portrait.     lamo.     Cloth,  $a.oo. 

"  Of  Catherine's  marvelous  career  we  have  in  this  volume  a 
sympathetic,  learned,  and  picturesque  narrative.  No  royal  ca- 
reer, not  even  some  of  the  Koinan  or  papal  ones,  has  belter 
shi)wn  us  how  truth  can  be  stranger  than  fiction."— AVj«  }'vri 
Times. 

"  A  most  wonderful  history,  charmingly  told,  with  new  mate- 
ri.ll  to  sustain  it,.and  a  breadth  and  tempciancc  and  considera- 
tion that  Ko  far  to  soften  one's  estimate  of  one  of  tlie  most 
extraordin.iry  women  ol  history." — Ntw  Yok  Commtrcial 
A  linertisi'r. 

"A  romance  in  which  fiction  finds  no  place:  a  charming 
narrative  wherein  the  author  le.irlcssly  presents  the  results  of 
what  has  been  obviously  a  thorough  and  impartial  investigation." 
—Philntidpkia  Press. 

"  The  book  makes  the  best  of  reading,  because  it  is  written 
without  fear  or  favor.  .  .  .  The  volume  is  exceedingly  suggest- 
ive, and  pives  to  the  general  reader  a  plain,  blunt,  strong,  and 
healthy  view  of  one  of  the  greatest  women  of  whom  history  bears 
retord." — .\>7i'  )'o>k  HeraUi. 


D.    APl'LETON    AND    COMPANY,    NEW  YORK. 


w^ 


/lilt  ,1  //  /;y    /y  .  /Si    .  Vitf/^i/  .  yYllfV/M : 


PETER  THE  GREAT 


BY    K.    WALISZEWSKI 

AUTHOR   OF 

THE    ROMANCE  OF  AN   EMPRESS, 

ETC. 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  FRENCH 
BY   LADY    MARY    LOYD 

WITH  A    PORTRAIT 


NEW   YORK 

U.   APPLETON   AND   COMPANY 

1897 


Authorized  Edition. 


W(7 


PREFACE 

'  Measure  thy  powers  on  thine  undertaking— and  not  the  undertaking 
by  thy  powers.' 

This  bold  advice,  the  dictum  of  a  poet  and  fellow-countiy- 
man  of  my  own,  has  been  the  almost  indispensable  inspira- 
tion of  this  historical  work  of  mine.  The  figure  which  forms 
its  subject — towering  above  the  history,  bound  up,  to  this 
very  hour,  with  the  existence,  of  the  Russian  nation — is  not 
one  to  be  lightly  approached. 

Therefore  it  is  that  I  have  come  to  him  so  late,  that  I 
have  worked  backwards,  up  the  course  of  the  years,  from  the 
great  Inheritress  to  the  creator  of  her  inheritance. 

Have  I  dared,  then,  at  last,  to  exchange  glances  with  that 
great  bronze  giant,  who,  so  the  poets  say,  '  steps  down,  on 
twilight  nights,  from  his  granite  pedestal,  hard  by  the  Neva 
river-bank,  and  rides  through  the  sleeping  city' — triumphant 
even  in  death  ?  Have  1  indeed — oh,  mighty  ghost !  who, 
for  well-nigh  two  hundred  years,  like  some  terrible  and 
familiar  demon,  hauntest  the  places  thou  didst  know  in 
life, — have  I,  in  good  truth,  happened  on  the  magic  formula 
which  brings  back  speech  to  phantoms,  and  builds  life  up 
around  them,  out  of  the  dust  of  bygone  days? 

I  have  lived  those  dead  hours  over  again,  in  fancy.  I  have 
seen  the  faces,  I  have  felt  the  warmth,  of  the  beings  and 
the  things  that  filled  them.  I  have  laid  my  finger  on  the 
miracle  of  that  legendary  reign — the  realisation  of  the  fabled 
grain  of  wheat  w'aich  sprouts  and  straightway  grows  into  a 


vi  PETER  THE  GREAT 

plant  on  the  palm  of  the  Hindu  Yoghi's  hand.  And  I  have 
had  speech  with  the  Man  of  Miracles  himself, — the  one 
unique  man,  perhaps,  in  the  history  of  the  human  race. 
Napoleon  is  the  greatest  of  Frenchmen,  or  the  greatest  of 
Italians,  according  to  the  fancy  of  his  historian.  He  is  not 
France  nor  Italy  incarnate.  Peter  is  Russia — her  flesh  and 
blood,  her  temperament  and  genius,  her  virtues  and  her 
vices.  With  his  various  aptitudes,  his  multiplicity  of  effort, 
his  tumultuous  passions,  he  rises  up  before  us,  a  collective 
being.  This  makes  his  greatness.  This  raises  him  far 
above  the  pale  shadows  which  our  feeble  historical  evoca- 
tion strives  to  snatch  out  of  oblivion.  There  is  no  need 
to  call  his  figure  up.  He  stands  before  us,  surviving  his 
own  existence,  perpetuating  himself — a  continual  actual 
fact. 

The  face  of  the  world  he  seems  to  have  called  out  of  chaos 
may  have  modified,  but  the  principle  of  its  existence  is 
unchanged.  The  immeasurable  force  is  there,  ^vhich,  these 
three  centuries  past,  has  defied  all  calculation,  which  has 
transformed  Ivan's  wretched  patrimony, — a  sparsely  inha- 
bited patch  of  wild  steppe  land, — into  the  inheritance  of 
Alexander  and  of  Nicholas — into  an  empire  exceeding  in 
size  and  population  every  other  known  sovereignty  in 
Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa — surpassing  those  of  Alexander  the 
Great,  or  Ancient  Rome,  the  realm  of  the  Khaliphs,  and  even 
the  present  British  Empire,  with  all  its  colonies — an  area  of 
some  eight  and  a  half  millions  of  square  miles,  a  population  of 
one  hundred  and  twenty  million  souls!  Once  upon  a  time 
that  force  was  called  '  Peter  the  Great.'  The  name  is  changed 
now.  The  characteristics  arc  unchanged.  It  is  still  the 
soul  of  a  great  jjcople — and  the  soul,  too,  of  a  great  man,  in 
whom  the  thoughts  and  wills  of  millions  of  human  beings 
appear  incarnate.  That  force  is  centred  in  him,  and  he  in 
it.     I  have  tried,  in  these  pages  of  mine,  to  make  it  throb. 

Not,  be  sure,  by  mere  dint  of  my  imagination.  Everything 
that  could  be  drawn  from  documentary  evidence — the  only 
pass-key  which  can   re-open  the   doors  each    passing  hour 


PREFACE  vii 

closes  upon  us — I  have  used.  I  hope  1  have  been  exact. 
I  know  I  have  been  sincere  ;  I  may  have  roused  surprise, 
disappointment,  even  anger.  I  would  urge  my  Russian 
readers  to  weigh  their  impressions  carefully.  Courage  to 
acknowledge  what  one  is,  and  even  what  one  has  been,  is  a 
very  necessary  quality.  For  Russia,  this  courage  is  a  very 
eas}''  one. 

I  would  pray  my  Russian  readers  too,  and  all  others,  not 
to  misunderstand  the  nature  of  the  object  I  have  set  before 
me.  When  Poushkin  was  collecting  materials  for  his 
biography  of  the  national  hero,  he  spoke  of  raising  a  monu- 
ment— acre  perennius,  which  was  to  be  too  firmly  set  to  be 
removed  by  human  hand,  and  dragged  from  square  to 
square.  Some  national  grudge,  it  would  appear,  existed — 
some  doubt  was  felt,  as  to  the  unchangeable  stability  of 
Falconnet's  masterpiece.  The  poet's  ambition,  his  care  for 
his  subject's  reputation,  common  to  most  of  my  forerunners, 
not  in  Russia  only,  have  never  affected  me.  Peter — without 
any  help  of  mine — already  has  the  monument  which,  as  I 
fain  would  think,  befits  him  best.  Not  Poushkin's,  nor  yet 
the  work  of  the  French  sculptor's  chisel.  The  monument  of 
which  I  speak  was  begun  by  his  own  rugged  hands.  His  suc- 
cessors will  labour  on  it,  yet,  for  many  a  year.  The  last  stone 
set,  and  that  a  mighty  one,  is  the  Trans-Siberian  railway. 

I\Iy  object,  as  I  say,  has  been  very  different.  The  eyes  of 
the  whole  modern  world  have  long  been  fixed — some  in 
sympathy,  others,  again,  dark  with  suspicion  and  hostility — 
on  the  mighty  sea  of  physical  and  moral  energy  which 
surged  up  suddenly  between  Old  Europe,  wearied  out  with 
eager  life,  and  Ancient  Asia,  wearied,  too,  with  the  stillness 
and  stagnation  of  hers.  Will  the  common  destinies  of  the 
two  Continents  sink  in  that  huge  abyss?  Or  will  its  waters 
prove  another  Fountain  of  Jouvence?  The  whole  world 
hangs  over  the  chasm,  on  either  side,  waiting  in  anxious 
apprehension,  peering  into  the  depths,  striving  to  fathom 
them.  My  part  is  simply  to  offer  certain  information  to  this 
universal  curiosity  and  dread. 


viii  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Behold!  This  may  be  the  appointed  hour!  The  dawn 
of  an  unknown  day  whitens  the  sky.  A  mist,  where  phan- 
tom figures  seem  to  float,  rises  over  the  broad  river. 
Hark!       Was    it    a    horse's    hoof  that  rang    on    the   silent 

stones?  .  .  . 

K.  W. 


CONTENTS 

PART  I— HIS  EDUCATION 

BOOK   I — FROM   ASIA   TO    EUROPE 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.    THE    KREML,    AND    THE    GERMAN    FAUBOURG,  .  ,  3 

II.   THE   TSAREVNA    SOPHIA,      .  .  .  .  .21 

III.    THE    MONASTERY    OF    THE  TROITSA,  .  .  •43 

BOOK   II — THE   LESSONS   OF   THE   CIVILISED   WORLD 

I.    ON      CAMPAIGN  —  A       WARLIKE       APPRENTICESHIP  THE 

CREATION    OF   THE    NAVY — THE   CAPTURE   OF   AZOF,  53 

II.    THE     JOURNEY GERMANY HOLLAND — ENGLAND THE 

RETURN,  .  ,  .  ,  .  '74 


PART  11— THE  MAN 

BOOK    I — BODY   AND    MIND 

I.    PHYSICAL    PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC   TRAITS,    .  .  I03 

II.    INTELLECTUAL   TRAITS    AND    MORAL   FEATURES,      .  .128 

in.    IDEAS,    PRINCIPLES,    AND    SYSTEM  OF   GOVERNMENT,  .  167 

IV.    PRIVATE   LIFE,       .  .  .  .  .  .  187 


X  PETER  THE  GREAT 

BOOK    II— THE   tsar's   ASSOCIATES 

CHAT. 

I.  COLLABORATORS,    FRIENDS   AND    FAVOURITES, 

II.  THE   FEMININE    ELEMENT, 

III.    CATHERINE,  ..... 


FACE 
20I 

263 


PART  III— ///5   JVORK 


LOOK   I— EXTERNAL   STRUGGLE — WAK    AND    DIPLOMACY 


I.    FROM    NARVA    TO    POLTAVA,    170O-1709, 
II.    FROM    THE    BALTIC   TO    THE    CASPIAN, 
III.    THE    APOGEE — FRANCE, 


PAGE 
•  358 


BOOK    II — THE   INTERNAL   STRUGGLE — THE   REFORMS 


I.    THE     NEW     REGIME  —  THE      END     OF     THE      STRELTSV 
ST.    PETERSBURG,         .... 

II.    MORALS — HABITS    AND    CUSTOMS, 

III.  THE    ECCLESIASTICAL    REFORMS    AND    THE    SUPPRESSION 

OF   THE    P.\TRIARCHATE, 

IV.  THE    SOCIAL   REFOR.M — THE    TABLE    OF    RANKS,    . 
V.    PETER'S    ECONOMIC   WORK, 

VI,    THE    POLITICAL    WORK    OF    PETER    THE    GREAT,     . 
VII.     IIIE    ARMY    AND    THE    NAVY,  .  .  , 

VIII.    THE    OPPOSITION — THE   TSAREVITCH    ALEXIS, 

IX.  pe;ter  the  great's  last  will — conclusion, 


392 
413 

441 
452 

462 

478 

498 
508 

544 


PART    I 
HIS    EDUCATION 


BOOK    I— FROM    ASIA    TO    EUROPE 
CHAPTER    I 

THE  KREML,^  AND  THE  GERMAN  FAUBOURG 

I.  The  marriage  of  Tsar  Alexis — The  choice  of  the  bride — The  crown  to  the 
fairest — The  dormitory  in  the  Kreml — Nathalia  Naryshkin — The  birth  of 
Peter — His  paternity  contested — The  struggle  between  the  Naryshkin 
and  the  Miloslavski — Exile. 

II.  The  Kreml :  Crypt,  Seraglio,  and  Gaol — Ten  centuries  of  history — Russia 
of  Moscow,  and  Russia  of  Kief — The  Norman  Conquest — Vanished  glories 
— The  sons  of  Ruiik — Jaroslav  the  Great,  and  Henry  the  First  of  France 
— The  Mongol  invasion — Utter  downfall — Recovery — Muscovite  Hege- 
mony under  a  Mongol  protectorate — Emancipation — Ivan  the  Great — 
Dawn  of  a  new  culture — European  influences — Poles,  Germans,  English, 
and  Dutchmen. 

III.  The  German  Faubourg — Europe  and  Asia — A  Muscovite  Ghetto — The  wck 
of  civilisation — Exp:tnsion — Thither  Peter  will  go. 

IV.  Times  of  trial — The  last  attempt  at  an  Asiatic  res^iiue — Deaths  of  Alexis 
and  Feodor — An  elected  Tsar— The  rSle  of  the  Patriarchs — The  victory 
of  the  Naryshkin — Peter  proclaimed — A  short-lived  triumph — The 
revenge  of  the  Miloslavski. 


Peter  Aleksi£ievitch  was  born  on  the  30th  of  May 
1672 — the  year  7180,  according  to  the  calendar  then  used 
in  his  country. 

Two  years  and  a  half  before  his  birth,  the  ancient  Kreml 
of  Moscow  had  beheld  a  strange  sight.  Dozens  of  young 
girls,  chosen  amongst  the  loveliest  discoverable,  drawn  from 
the  most  distant  provinces,  from  every  rank  and  station, — 
gentle  and  simple,  from  castle  and  from  hut,  and  even  from 
religious  houses,  had  entered  the  Tsar's  palace,  on   a  day 

*  The  name  is  thus  spelt  and  pronounced  in  Russian.     Kremlin  is  a  spurious 
form,  of  Polish  origin. 


4  PETER  THE  GREAT 

appointed  by  himself.  There,  crowded  haphazard  into  the 
six  rooms  appointed  to  their  use,  they  had  led  the  usual  life 
of  Muscovite  wives  and  maidens  of  that  age — the  cloistered 
existence,  idle  and  monotonous,  of  Eastern  women,  scarce 
broken  by  some  slight  manual  task,  scarce  brightened,  here 
and  there,  by  an  occasional  song.  Thus,  all  day  long  they 
dreamt,  and  pined,  and  sighed,  and  yawned  over  oft-repeated 
tales  and  legends,  bristling  with  wonderful  absurdities.  But 
w  hen  night  fell,  ah  !  then  all  the  hours  of  weariness,  and 
disgust,  and  impatient  longing,  were  forgotten  ;  and  each 
young  creature,  her  every  sense  on  the  alert,  felt  her  soul 
leap  and  tremble  with  the  sudden  palpitation  of  a  tre- 
mendous chance,  in  the  feverish  but  short-lived  sensation, 
nightly  recurring,  of  an  exquisite  terror,  and  anxiety,  and 
hope.  Masculine  forms  loomed  on  the  threshold  of  the 
suite  of  rooms,  which  were  converted  into  dormitories  when 
darkness  fell.  Two  men  passed  between  the  narrow  beds, 
leisurely  examining  the  lovely  sleepers,  exchanging  signifi- 
cant words  and  gestures.  And  one  of  these  was  the  Tsar 
Alexis  Mihailovitch — the  Tsar  himself — i?i  propria  persona, 
accompanied  by  his  doctor,  and  seeking,  amongst  those 
unknown  beauties,  his  chosen  wife, — 'the  woman,'  as  the 
time-honoured  formula  has  it,  '  worthy  to  be  the  Sovereign's 
delight,'  the  woman  whom,  though  she  were  the  daughter  of 
the  meanest  of  his  serfs,  he  might,  on  the  morrow,  make  a 
Grand  Duchess  first,  and  then  Tsarina  of  all  the  Russias. 

The  custom,  two  centuries  old  already,  had  been  borrowed 
from  the  Byzantines,  partly  for  high  political  reasons,  a 
little  too,  out  of  sheer  necessity.  Ivan  Vassilcvitch  ('the 
Great,'  143 5- 1505),  had  vainly  sought  a  wife  for  his  son 
among  the  princesses  of  foreign  houses.  The  King  of 
Denmark,  the  Margrave  of  Brandcnbiurg,  had  alike  rebuffed 
him  scornfully.  And  he  would  have  no  more  alliances  with 
his  neighbours  and  rivals,  the  Russian  Dukes.  So  he  caused 
fifteen  hundred  maidens  to  be  gathered  together  at  Moscow 
— the  Grand  Ducal  coronet  should  be  bestowed  on  the  fairest, 
at  all  events,  if  not  on  the  most  nobly  born.  A  century  later, 
the  Tsar  Michael  Fcodorovitch,  who  attempted  matrimony 
with  a  foreign  princess,  met  with  no  better  success.  The 
Danish  King  even  went  so  far  as  to  refuse  to  receive  the 
Russian  Envoys.^    From  that  time  out,  the  custom  had  been 

^  Zabielin,  Domestic  History  of  the  Tsixrinas  (Moscow,  1872),  p.  245. 


THE  KREML,  AND  THE  GERMAN  FAUBOURG     5 

definitely  established.  Certain  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the 
Court  were  deputed  to  examine  the  young  girls  who  came  to 
Moscow,  in  answer  to  the  Impeiial  call.  Tiieir  inspection, 
minute  and  severe,  extended  to  the  most  intimate  details. 
Thus,  by  a  process  of  selection,  only  the  daintiest  morsels 
were  actually  presented  to  the  Tsar.^ 

But  occasionally,  as  in  1670,  this  custom  became  a  mere 
formalit}'.  The  dreams  of  the  fair  sleepers  were  doomed, 
this  time,  to  disappointment ;  their  nocturnal  wiles  were 
to  be  displayed  in  vain.  The  Sovereign's  choice  had  been 
fixed  before  their  arrival  in  the  city.  The  Tsar  Alexis 
Mihailovitch  was  thirty-eight  years  of  age  when  his  first 
wife — a  Miloslavski,  who  had  borne  him  five  sons  and  eight 
daughters — died,  in  the  year  1667.  Of  these  sons,  three 
were  already  dead  ;  the  survivors,  Feodor  and  Ivan,  were 
both  sickly  ;  and  the  Tsar's  evident  duty  was  to  consider 
the  question  of  remarriage.  He  considered  it  seriously,  when 
his  eye  fell,  one  day,  in  the  house  of  Artamon  Siergueievitch 
Matvieief,  on  a  beautiful  brunette,  whom  he  took,  at  first,  for 
the  daughter  of  his  favourite  counsellor.  Nathalia  Kirillovna 
Naryshkin  was  only  his  ward,  confided  by  her  father,  an 
obscure  and  needy  country  gentleman,  to  the  care  of  the 
rich  and  powerful  boj'ard.  The  fair  Nathalia  could  never 
have  burst  on  her  Sovereign's  dazzled  eyes  in  any  true 
Muscovite  house,  where  local  custom  was  held  in  due  respect. 
The  young  girl  must  have  remained  invisible,  behind  the 
impenetrable  portals  of  the  tcreni.  But  the  Matvieief  house- 
hold was  emancipated  from  the  ordinary  rule.  Artamon 
had  married  a  foreigner — a  Hamilton.  The  tempest  of 
revolution  which  had  overwhelmed  the  great  Jacobite  fami- 
lies, had  cast  up  some  branches  of  them,  even  upon  the 
inhospitable  shores  of  that  distant  and  barbarous  empire. 
Alexis  welcomed  the  strangers,  and  Matvieief  actually  owed 
a  portion  of  his  master's  favour  to  his  alliance  with  one 
of  them.  His  marriage  had  also  given  him  a  certain  culture. 
He  read  much  ;  he  had  a  library,  a  museum,  a  small  chemical 
laboratory.  Nathalia  had  her  place  at  her  adopted  parents' 
table — sometimes  even  amongst  their  guests.  Alexis  began 
by  saying  he  would  undertake  to  find  the  girl  a  husband 
'who  would  ask  for  no  fortune  with  her.'  Then,  suddenly, 
he  made  up  his  mind  and  spoke  out.      Artamon  Siergu6- 

'  Zatjielin,  Domestic  History  of  the  Tsarifias  (Moscow,  1872),  p.  222, 


6  PETER  THE  GREAT 

i^vitch  was  more  alarmed  than  pleased.  His  position  as 
imperial  favourite  had  already  procured  him  numerous 
enemies.  Sprung  from  a  somewhat  obscure  family,  he  had 
pushed  himself  into  the  foremost  rank,  he  was  at  the  head 
of  various  departments  ;  he  managed  Foreign  Affairs,  the 
Mint,  he  was  Court  Minister,  Commander  of  the  Strcltsy, 
Governor  of  Little  Russia,  of  Kasan  and  of  Astrakan.  He 
begged,  at  all  events,  to  be  shielded  by  appearances.  Nathalia 
had  to  show  herself  in  the  dormitory  at  the  Kreml.  All  the 
rites  were  scrupulously  observed.  The  uncle  of  one  fair 
aspirant  actually  had  to  face  the  justice  of  the  Tsar  for 
having  used  fraudulent  manceuvres  in  his  niece's  favour,  and 
was  put  to  the  question,  ordinary  and  extraordinary,  by  the 
knout,  by  the  strappado,  and  by  fire.  The  marriage  was 
solemnised  on  22nd  January  1671,  and  on  30th  May  (12th 
June)  1672,  Nathalia  Kirillovna  bore  a  son. 

On  that  very  day,  Louis  XIV.  supplied  Boileau  with  tlie 
subject  of  a  famous  epistle,  as  he  watched  his  army,  led  by 
Cond(S  and  Turcnne,  pass  over  the  Rhine.  On  that  very 
day,  too,  at  the  opposite  end  of  Europe,  the  Turkish  army 
passed  the  Dniester,  to  clasp  hands  across  space  with  that 
of  the  Grand  JMonarque,  and  take  the  Empire  in  the  rear. 
Neither  of  these  events  awoke  much  interest  at  Moscow, 
where  all  were  rejoicing  over  the  birth  of  the  Tsarevitch. 
Life  there  was  too  circumscribed  and  obscure  to  be  much 
affected  by  the  great  currents  of  European  politics.  Obscure 
and  doubtful,  too,  to  this  very  hour,  is  the  birthplace  of  the 
greatest  man  Russia  ever  produced.  Was  it  the  Moscow 
Kreml?  the  neighbouring  country  house  of  Kolomenskoie, 
dubbed  the  Russian  BethleJiem}  Or  was  it  Ismailovo?  No 
absolute  certainty  exists.  The  dispute  is  carried  further 
still.  Peter  bore  no  resemblance,  physical  or  moral,  to  his 
elder  brothers  and  sisters, — puny  and  feeble  all  of  them,  like 
Feodor  and  Ivan,  all,  even  the  fair  Sophia  herself,  bearing  a 
taint  in  their  blood.  And  could  Ale.xis,  worn  out  by  illness, 
foredoomed  to  an  early  death,  have  bestowed,  on  any  son  of 
his,  that  giant  stature,  those  iron  muscles,  that  full  life? 
Who  tlien  ?  Was  it  the  German  surgeon,  who  replaced  the 
daughter  Nathalia  really  brought  into  the  world,  by  his 
own  son  ?  Was  it  the  courtier,  Tihone  Nikititch  Streshnief, 
a  man  of  humble  birth,  lately  brought  into  prominence  by 
the  marriage  of  the  Tsar  Michael   Romanof  with  the  fair 


THE  KREML,  AND  TIIK  GERMAN  FAUBOURG  7 

Eudoxia  ?  Once  upon  a  time,  Peter,  heated  with  wine,  sought 
(so  at  least  the  story  goes)  to  peer  into  this  shadow.  '  That 
fellow,'  he  cried,  pointing  to  one  of  the  company,  Ivan 
Mussin-Pushkin,  '  knows,  at  all  events,  that  he  is  my  father's 
son  !  Whose  son  am  I  ?  Yours,  Tihon  Streshniet  ?  Obey 
me,  speak,  and  fear  nothing  !  Speak  !  or  I  '11  have  you 
strangled  ! ' 

'  Bai'iiishka,  mercy  ! '  comes  the  answer,  '  I  know  not 
what  to  say.  ...  I  was  not  the  only  one  ! '  ^ 

But  every  kind  of  story  has  been  told  ! 

The  death  of  Alexis  (1674)  marks  the  beginning  of  a 
troubled  period,  out  of  which  Peter's  despotic  power  rises, 
storm-laden  and  blood-stained,  like  the  times  which  gave  it 
birth. 

This  period  makes  its  definite  mark  on  the  destiny  of  the 
future  Reformer.  From  its  very  outset,  he  becomes  the  hero 
of  a  drama,  the  naturally  indicated  chief  of  an  opposition 
party.  Beside  the  yet  warm  corpse  of  their  common 
Master,  the  two  families,  called  out  of  their  obscurity  by 
the  Tsar's  two  marriages,  engage  in  desperate  struggle. 

The  Naryshkins  of  a  later  generation  have  claimed  a 
relatively  illustrious  origin,  in  connection  with  a  Czech 
family,  the  Narisci,  which  once  reigned  at  Egra.  But  the 
Tartar  Narish,  noted  by  the  historian  Mliller  as  one  of  the 
familiars  of  the  Ktiiaz  Ivan  Vassilevitch  (1463),  would 
appear  a  more  authentic  ancestor. 

The  Miloslavski  were  the  Muscovite  branch  of  the  Korsak, 
an  ancient  Lithuanian  family,  settled  in  Poland.  Deprived 
by  the  new  comers  of  their  rank  and  influence,  they  felt 
themselves  alike  injured  and  humiliated.  Nathalia's  father, 
Kiril  Poluiektovitch,  had  risen,  in  a  few  years,  to  be  one  of 
the  richest  men  in  the  country,  Court  Councillor  {ciuiiuiyi 
dvoriani)i)  and  Grand  Officer  of  the  Crown  {okolnits/iyt). 
The  bells  that  tolled  for  the  funeral  of  Alexis  rang  out  the 
iiour  of  vengeance  on  his  rival's  ears.  '  Miloslavski  against 
Naryshkin  ! '  For  the  next  thirteen  years  that  war-cry 
was  to  rule  the  fate  of  Russia,  casting  it  into  the  blood- 
stained struggle  between  the  two  parties  fighting  for  power. 

'  Vockcrodt,  Correspoudence  (]-)ul)lished  by  Herrmann,  Lcipsic,  1872),  p.  loS. 
Solovief, //«/.  (^/i^Vii/rt  (Moscow,  1864-1S7S),  vol.  xv.  pp.  126-135.    Sieniiovski, 
Slut/y  of  the  Stale  Police  in  Russia  (Slovo  i  Dielo)  (St.  Petersburg,  1SS5),  p.  139. 
Dol^oruukof,  Mcmoires  (Geneva,  1S67),  vol.  i.  p.  102. 
2 


rr.TER  THE  GREAT 


Matvicicf,  Natlialin's  adoptive  fatlicr,  beaten  in  his  first 
skirinisii,  heads  the  list  of  victims,  lie  was  imprisoned, 
tortured,  exiled  to  I'ustoziersk  in  Siberia,  where  he  almost 
died  of  huntrer.^  For  a  moment,  there  was  some  question  of 
immurinp^  Nathalia  in  a  cloister  ;  but  the  mother  and  son 
were  finally  sent  to  PreobrajenskoTe,  a  villat^c  near  Moscow, 
where  Alexis  had  built  him  a  house.  Thus  Peter  left  the 
Kreml,  never  to  return,  save  for  a  very  short  space  of  time, 
durin^;  which  he  was  to  endure  the  most  cruel  trials,  the 
most  odious  outrages,  to  watch  the  murder  of  his  own 
kinsfolk,  to  see  the  Sovereign's  authority  cast  down  into  the 
lowest  depths,  to  witness  his  own  downfall.  Then  it  was 
that  he  vowed  relentless  hatred  to  the  gloomy  palace.  Even 
as  Conqueror  and  all-powerful  Master,  he  pointedly  turned 
liis  back  upon  it.  That  rupture  was  the  symbol  of  his  life 
and  of  its  work. 


II 

The  Kreml  of  the  present  day — a  crowded  and  haphazard 
collection  of  incongruous  buildings,  utterly  devoid,  for  the 
most  part,  of  style  or  character — conveys  but  a  faint  con- 
ception of  the  palace  of  Ale.xis  Mihailovitch,  as  it  appeared 
at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  fires  of  1701 
and  1737,  and  the  reconstruction  which  took  place  in  1752,^ 
have  left  the  barest  traces  of  the  curious  Italian  Renaissance, 
introduced,  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century,  by  the 
daughter  of  a  Paleologus,  educated  at  Rome.^  Some 
vestiges  still  exist  of  the  struggle  of  the  genius  of  Fioravante, 
of  Solaro,  of  Alevise,  with  Byzantine  tradition  ;  a  few 
churches,  a  few  fragments  of  palaces,  and  the  outer  walls — 
more  like  those  of  a  fortified  camp  than  of  a  royal  residence, 
with  their  far-stretching  low  ramparts,  and  their  brick  towers 
showing  in  slim  outline,  here  and  there,  like  warriors  on  the 
watch.  Without  these  walls,  on  the  Red  Square,  the  only 
edifice  which  powerfully  conjures  up  the  vanished  past  is 
the  Church  of  Vassili  the  Blessed.  Within  them,  doubtless, 
there  was  the  same  architectural  confusion, — the  same  violent 

'  See  //ts/fliy  of  his  CaMivity,  puhlislicd  at  Moscow,  1785,  by  NoviUofl" 
'  Zaiiielin,    Domrslic    Ilislory   of  the    Tsan    (Moscow,    1895).    pp.    llO-IlS. 
Oiis'rinlof,  Ifistory  of  Peler  I.  (St.  Peters) nirtr,  iSsS),  vol.  iv.  p.  33. 
'  1'.  ricrliiig,  La  Ktisiie  et  U  Si.  Su-^'e  (r.iris,  1896),  p.  107. 


THE  KREML,  AND  THE  GERMAN  FAUBOURG     9 

juxtaposition  of  the  German  gothic  style  with  those  of  India, 
of  Byzantium,  and  of  Italy, — the  same  tangle  of  edifices, 
packed  one  within  the  other  like  a  Chinese  puzzle, — the  same 
strange,  wild  orgy  of  decoration,  of  form,  of  colour — a  delirium 
and  fever,  a  veritable  surfeit  of  plastic  fancy.  Small  rooms, 
surbased  vaulted  roofs,  gloomy  corridors,  lamps  twinkling 
out  of  the  darkness,  on  the  walls  the  lurid  glow  of  mingled 
ochres  and  vermilions,  iron  bars  to  every  window,  armed 
men  at  every  door;  a  swarming  population  of  monks  and 
warriors  everywhere.  The  palace  rubbed  shoulders  with 
the  church  and  the  monastery,  and  was  scarcely  distinguish- 
able from  them.  The  Sovereign,  on  his  throfie,  was  like  the 
neighbouring  relic  of  some  Saint,  within  its  shrine.  From 
one  end  to  the  other  of  that  strange  accumulation  of  build- 
ings, sacred  and  secular  dwellings,  cathedrals  and  convents 
by  the  score,  confused  noises, — dulled  and  stifled  by  massive 
walls,  thick  oriental  hangings,  and  the  heavy  air  imprisoned 
within  them, — rose  and  fell,  their  echoes  intermingling  in  a 
vague  harmony  of  sound.  From  within  the  churches 
sounded  the  voices  of  chanting  priests  ;  from  the  terem 
came  the  singing  of  the  women — now  and  again  a  sharper 
note  would  echo  from  some  corner  of  the  palace,  scene 
of  a  secret  orgy,  and  then  a  shriller  cry,  the  plaint  of 
some  tortured  prisoner  in  his  dungeon.  But,  for  the  most 
part,  silence  reigned  ;  men  whispered  under  their  breath  ; 
they  stepped  carefully,  feeling  their  way.  Each  one  watched 
his  neighbour,  and  his  neighbour  him.  It  was  a  crypt,  a 
seraglio,  a  gaol,  in  one. 

This  being  so,  the  Kreml  was  more  than  the  mere 
residence  of  the  Tsar.  All  Russia  was  here  concentrated 
and  summed  up, — a  strange  Russia,  ten  centuries  old,  and 
yet  an  infant ;  a  long  historic  past  behind  her,  yet  standing, 
apparently,  on  the  threshold  of  her  history.  This  Russia, 
severed  from  her  European  neighbours,  who  know  her  not, 
yet  has  European  blood  of  the  purest  in  her  veins,  her  annals 
teem  with  European  traditions,  alliances,  relationships,  ay, 
and  with  traces  of  a  common  fate,  in  good  fortune  and  ill, 
in  \'ictory  and  disaster. 

Between  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries,  when  the  earliest 
French  Kings,  Charles  le  Gros  and  Louis  le  Beguc,  are 
struggling  painfully  to  defend  their  treasures  from  Norman 
robbers,  other  Sea  Kings  land  on  the  Baltic  shore.     Yonder 


lo  rr.TKR  THE  GREAT 

the  Norman,  Ilrolf,  wrests  the  coa'^t  country,  called  after  his 
race,  from  Charles  the  Simple.  J  Fere,  on  the  micjhty  plain 
that  stretches  from  the  l^altic  to  the  Black  Sea,  among  the 
scanty  Finnish  or  Slavonic  population  which  alone  disturbs 
the  solitude,  the  Norman  Rurik  and  his  followers  found 
their  ICmpire.^ 

A  century  and  a  half  later,  at  the  three  farthest  corners  of 
Europe,  three  heroic  leaders  affirm  the  supremacy  of  the 
same  race,  covering  it  with  the  common  glory  of  their 
conquests.  In  Italy,  Robert  Guiscard  founds  the  House 
of  Hautevillc.  William  the  Conqueror  seats  himself  in 
England.     Jaroslav  reigns  in  Russia. 

But  this  Russia  is  not  the  Russia  of  Moscow.  Moscow 
does  not  exist,  as  yet.  Jaroslav's  capital  is  at  Kief,  a  very 
different  place,  far  nearer  to  the  Western  world.  Rurik's 
descendants,  dwelling  there,  keep  up  close  relations  with 
Greece,  with  Italy,  with  Poland,  with  Germany.  B\zantium 
sends  them  monks,  and  learned  men,  and  stately  prelates. 
Italy  and  Germany  give  them  architects,  artificers,  merchants, 
and  the  elements  of  Roman  law.  Towards  the  year  looo, 
Vladimar,  the  '  Red  Sun'  of  the  Rhapsodes,  commands  his 
lords  to  send  their  children  to  the  schools  he  has  established 
near  the  churches  ;  he  makes  roads,  and  deposits  test  weights 
and  measures  in  the  churches.  His  son  Jaroslav  (1015- 
1054)  coins  mone\\  builds  palaces,  adorns  the  open  spaces 
of  his  capital  with  Greek  and  Latin  sculpture,  and  draws  up 
a  code  of  laws.  The  five  pictures  preserved  in  the  Vatican, 
under  the  name  of  the  Capponi  Collection,  are  an  authentic 
proof,  and  a  most  curious  specimen,  of  Russian  art  as  it 
flourished  at  Kief  in  the  twelfth  century.-  The  execution 
is  masterly,  in  no  way  inferior  to  the  best  work  of  the  early 
Italians,  such  as  Andrea  Rico  di  Candia.  And  these  are 
not  the  only  signs  of  culture  at  Kief  In  1 170,  at  Smolensk, 
we  find  the  Kniaz,  Roman  Rostislavitch,  busied  with  learned 

■■  This  conquest,  altliough  disputed  by  Sl.ivopliil  historians,  would  seem  to  be 
an  undoubleci  fact.  See  Soloviof  s  refutation  of  Ilovai^ki's  opinion  (Co/fected 
IVorks  on  Politics  (Bezobrazof,  1879),  vol.  vii.),  and  the  .Studies  of  Father 
Martynof  (h'evue  Jes  Queslions  Historiijues,  July  1S75.  PQlyhiblion,  1S75). 
Solovicf  at  all  events  makes  the  admission — a  consolintj  one  to  the  noti<in;il 
vanity — that  the  Slav  tribes  submitted  voluntarily  to  a  foreign  A'liias,  whom  they 
calle'i  to  rule  over  them. 

-  This  colic  tion  was  presented  by  Peter  the  Great  to  Count  Capivni,  in 
acknowledgment  of  his  share  in  obtaining  the  signa  ure  of  a  commercial  treaty 
with  Genoa. 


THE  KREML,  AND  THE  GERMAN  FAUBOURG    ii 

subjects.  He  collects  libraries,  founds  schools  and  seminaries, 
where  the  classical  languages  are  taught.  From  one  end  to 
the  other  of  the  huge  Empire  just  beginning  to  take  shape, 
between  the  Don  and  the  Carpathians,  the  Volga  and  the 
Dvina,  a  busy  trade  is  already  carried  on  with  Europe — 
western,  southern,  and  northern,  Novgorod  commands  the 
commerce  of  the  Baltic.  At  Kief  a  motley  crowd  of 
merchants — Norman,  Slav,  Hungarian,  Venetian,  Genoese, 
German,  Arab,  and  Jew — fill  the  streets,  and  deal  in  every 
kind  of  product.  In  1028  there  were  a  dozen  markets  in 
the  city.  And  these  Dukes  of  Kief  have  no  need  to  seek 
their  wives  within  their  subjects'  tercms.  Jaroslav  espouses 
a  Swede,  Ingegard,  the  daughter  of  King  Olaf.  He  marries 
his  sister  to  King  Casimir  of  Poland  ;  one  of  his  sons, 
Vsievolod,  to  the  daughter  of  the  Emperor  Constantino 
Monomachus  of  Byzantium  ;  anotlier,  Viatcheslaf,  to  a 
Countess  of  Stade  ;  a  third,  Igor,  to  Kunigunde,  Countess  of 
Orlamiinde.  His  eldest  daughter,  Elizabeth,  weds  King 
Harold  of  Norway  ;  the  third,  Anastasia,  King  Andreas  i.  of 
Hungary.  Three  Bishops,  Gautier  de  Meaux,  Gosselin  de 
Chalignac,  and  Roger  de  Chalons,  come  to  Kief,  in  1048,  to 
ask  the  hand  of  the  second  daughter,  Anne,  for  Henry  i.  of 
France. 

Before  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century  all  this  crumbles 
and  disappears,  leaving  no  trace  behind.  The  Empire  had 
not  as  yet  really  found  its  feet :  it  was  not  founded  upon 
the  rock,  firm  to  withstand  any  violent  shock.  Dukes  of 
Kief,  of  Novgorod,  of  Smolensk,  though  they  were,  these 
Rurikovitch,  in  spite  of  their  union  of  warlike  instinct  witli 
very  remarkable  organising  powers,  bore  about  with  them 
the  brand  of  their  origin — a  ferment  of  disorder  and  violence, 
from  which  nothing  but  the  action  of  time,  bringing  with 
it  long  established  submission  to  the  customs  of  civilised 
societies,  and  the  laws  of  a  strongly  organised  State,  could 
have  delivered  them.  Time  played  them  false.  The  blow 
came  in  1224,  when  Baty,  with  his  Mongol  hordes,  appeared 
upon  the  scene.  At  that  moment,  after  some  attempt,  early 
in  the  twelfth  century,  at  concentration, under  Vladimir  Mono- 
machus, sixty  petty  princes  were  quarrelling  over  scraps 
of  power  and  rags  of  sovereignty  between  the  Volga  and  the 
lUig.  Baty  and  Mangu,  a  grandson  of  Gcngis  Khan,  forced 
them  into  reconciliation. 


12  PETER  THE  CKKAT 

Centuries  of  endeavour  and  of  civilisincj  eflTort  were  thus 
to  disappear  into  the  dust  raised  by  the  hoofs  of  a  hundred 
thousand  horses.  Of  ancient  Russia,  Europeanised,  indeed, 
by  its  conquerors,  but  in  no  sense  denationalised, — thanks 
to  the  rapid  absorption  of  the  scanty  Norman  element — not 
a  trace  remained.  In  the  following  century,  between  13 19 
and  1340,  Kief  and  the  neij^hbourini^  countries  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  future  Kini^s  of  Poland,  still  Dukes  of  Lithuania. 

After  the  reij^n  of  Giedymine,  JagcUon,  annexing  all  the 
fragments  of  the  ephemeral  sovereignty  of  Monomachus — 
Red  Russia,  White  Russia,  Black  Russia,  Little  Russia — to 
the  new  Polish-Lithuanian  Lmpirc,  wielded  the  sceptre  of 
'all  the  Russias,' — as  the  time-honoured  formula  now  runs. 
And  the  countries  he  annexed  were  little  more  than  deserts. 
At  this  moment  the  history  of  the  Rurikovitch  sovereignty 
seems  utterly  closed. 

But  it  springs  up  afresh,  eastward  of  the  huge  space 
marked  out  by  I'ate  as  the  dwelling-place  of  an  innumer- 
able population,  and  the  scene  of  an  immeasurable  develop- 
ment. In  the  upper  basin  of  the  \'olga,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Mosk\a,  in  the  midst  of  a  sparse  Finnish  population,  a  poor 
village,  overlooked  by  a  strong  fortified  castle,  had,  since  the 
twelfth  century,  been  the  home  and  appanage  of  one  of  the 
descendants  of  Rurik.  Destro}-ed,  more  than  once,  in  the 
course  of  incessant  warfare  with  its  Rurikovitch  neighbours, 
swept  by  the  wave  of  invading  Mongols,  this  village  raised 
its  head  again  and  again,  increased  in  size,  and,  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  fourteenth  century,  already  formed  the  nucleus 
of  a  fresh  agglomeration  of  Norman,  Slav,  and  Finnish 
elements.  Taking  docile  submission  to  the  yoke  of  the 
Asiatic  conquerors  for  his  rule,  the  Kniaz  of  Moscow  ended 
by  making  that  yoke  serve  as  an  organising  instrument, 
useful  alike  for  internal  government,  and  external  expan- 
sion. Humbly,  patiently,  adroitly,  he  undertook  the  duties 
of  an  intermediary — welcomed  by  one  side  for  his  usefulness, 
endured  by  the  other  as  a  necessity — between  the  conquerors 
and  the  C()n<iucred  ;  stoo[)ing  to  play  the  part  of  tax-collector 
for  the  common  master,  of  police  agent,  of  executioner,  if 
need  be.  Extending  and  strengthening,  by  slow  degrees, 
the  su])eriority  thus  dearly  bought,  the  wily  Kniaz  succeeded 
each  other,  until  the  day  should  come — long  waited,  carefully 
prepared — when  one  should   be  strong  enough  to  break  the 


THE  KREML,  AND  THE  GERMAN  FAUBOURG    13 

infamous  compact,  which  had  served  him  and  his  forebears 
as  a  tool  for  their  own  emancipation. 

Thus  well-nigh  two  centuries  passed.  Two  centuries,  in 
the  course  of  which  the  neighbourini:^  Kfiiaa—o^  Pcrciaslavl, 
Riazan,  Vladimir,  Ouglitch,  Halitch,  Rostov,  Jaroslavl, 
Souzdal — became  one  by  one,  little  by  little,  first  of  all 
vassals,  and  finally  mere  chief  subjects,  bayards,  of  the  Kiiiac 
of  Moscow,  whose  power  swelled  visibly,  while  the  Mongol 
Hegemony,  worn  out  and  broken  up  by  internal  discord, 
steadily  declined.  At  last,  somewhere  about  1480,  the 
period  of  probation  drew  to  a  close,  and  astounded  Europe 
suddenly  became  aware  that,  between  herself  and  Asia, 
there  lay  a  new  Empire,  whose  chief  had  formally  declared 
its  independence,  having  driven  the  Golden  Horde  beyond 
the  newly  traced  frontiers  of  the  immense  territory  under 
his  rule,  wedded  at  Rome,  with  a  Greek  Princess  from  Con- 
stantinople, and  taken  the  double-headed  eagle  for  his 
emblem.  His  name  was  Ivan,  known  by  his  subjects  as 
'  Ivan  the  Great.' 

But  this  new  sovereignty  was  not  that  of  Kief,  and,  but 
for  the  dynastic  origin  of  its  Head,  it  would  seem  to  have 
nought  in  common  with  that  which  constituted  the  power 
and  glory  of  Jaroslav  and  Vladimir.  The  Grand  Duke  of 
Moscow  might  indeed  dub  himself  Sovereign  of  'all  the 
Russias,'  but  the  provinces  he  thus  claimed,  and  called  his 
own,  were  not  in  his  keeping.  They  belonged  to  Poland. 
Tile  country  he  actually  held  was  quite  independent,  so  far 
as  three-fourths  of  it  were  concerned,  of  that  conquered  by 
the  ancient  Normans,  and,  ever)-thing,  or  almost  ever)'thing, 
both  in  his  Empire  and  his  Capital,  was  of  newer  origin,  and 
essentially  different  in  character.  Europe,  so  to  speak,  had 
no  place  there. 

The  flood,  receding  from  this  soil,  had  left  behind  it,  like 
a  heavy  clay  deposit,  all  its  more  stable  elements — form  of 
government,  customs,  habits  of  thought.  No  germ  of  culture 
remained,  and  for  the  best  of  reasons.  Save  for  the  traditions 
of  the  Rw.antine-Russian  Church,  preserved  bv  Greek  monks 
and  nuns,  the  state  and  the  society  which  had  struggled 
into  organised  existence,  under  the  tutelage  of  the  successors 
of  Baty,  were  essentially  Asiatic,  and  genuinely  barbarous. 
State  and  society  alike,  during  their  long  separation  from 
lunope,  had  known  nothing  of  the  great  school  in  which  the 


14  PETER  THE  GREAT 

intellectual  and  mciral  unity  of  the  West  was  shaped  ;  of  the 
feudal  system,  the  Crusades,  chivalry,  the  study  of  Roman 
Law,  out  of  which  the  modern  spirit  has  risen,  stepping 
backwards  from  its  first  sprinc^s ;  of  the  great  struggle 
between  the  religious  and  the  temporal  powers,  in  which  the 
spirit  of  freedom  took  its  birth.  \Vhen  the  Metropolitan  of 
Moscow  (only  recently — 1325  or  1381 — called  into  existence) 
refused  the  amalgamation  with  Rome,  decided  at  the  Council 
of  Florence,  and  accepted  by  the  Metropolitan  of  Kief,  the 
city,  voluntarily  and  deliberately,  broke  with  the  Western 
World.  The  obscure  and  remote  Eastern  schism,  condemned 
by  the  Pope,  withdrew  itself  beyond  the  pale  of  Christianity. 
When  men  had  grown  weary  of  disputing  over  it,  they  were 
to  cast  it  into  oblivion. 

But  culture  began  to  sprout  afresh,  pushing  up  slowly, 
through  the  thick  crust  of  Asiatic  mire.  It  came  as  best  it 
could —from  Europe  always — and  first  of  all  from  Poland, 
through  the  great  Lithuanian  lords,  who  had  been  Russians 
before  they  were  Poles.  Before  the  insurgent  Kurbski, 
Ivan  the  Great's  whilom  helper,  took  refuge  with  his  neigh- 
bours, he  kept  up  close  correspondence  with  the  Czartoryski, 
Russian  and  orthodox  still,  to  the  backbone.  Ivan  himself, 
returning  victorious  from  Poland,  brought  back,  as  booty 
and  symbolic  troph\',  the  first  printing  press  ever  seen  in 
Moscow,  The  conquest  of  Novgorod  (1475)  had  served  to 
bring  the  new  P^mpire  into  contact  with  the  Hanse  towns. 
In  1553  the  English  discovered  the  mouth  of  the  Dvina. 
Next  came  the  foundation  of  the  town  of  Archangel,  and 
the  beginning  of  commerce  in  the  Northern  seas.  Then 
fresh  invasion — and  the  struggle  for  existence  began  once 
more.  This  time,  hajjpily,  the  invading  wave  came  from  a 
different  quarter.  It  rolled  back  from  Europe,  passing  away 
more  rapidly  than  the  last,  and  leaving  something  more  than 
mere  mud  behind  it.  The  Polish  armies  brought  the  whole 
paraphernalia  of  Rome  in  their  train.  Jesuits  and  Sons  of 
St.  JJcrnard — Catholic  propaganda,  and  the  learning  of  the 
schools.  After  the  Jesuits — learned,  fluent,  shrewd — come  the 
mock  Tsars,  likewise  of  Polish  origin,  subtle  and  elef,'ant. 
The  Court  of  Dimitri  and  Marina  Mniszech  is  modelled  on 
that  of  Sigismund,  who  had  formed  his  after  the  counsel  of 
his  wife,  Bone  Sforza,  whose  Polish  orchestra  mingles  its 
secular  strains  with  the  rites  of  the  Orthodox  Church!    At  the 


THE  KREML,  AND  THE  GERMAN  FAUBOURG    15 

very  moment  of  the  definite  triumph  of  the  national  cause, 
Western  and  Polisli  influences  are  affirmed,  even  in  the  very 
victories  and  re-establishment  of  the  Muscovite  element  in 
Poland,  and  in  the  West.  When  the  armies  of  Tsar 
Alexis  entered  Kief,  they  found  no  sign,  doubtless,  of  what 
the  Mongol  conquerors  had  found  there —  no  trace  of  former 
splendours.  Yet  they  found  something  better  than  the  emjni- 
ness  and  void  at  Moscow.  Some  schools  of  Polish  origin,  a 
printing  press  too,  ready  to  replace  that  of  Ivan  (promptly 
anathematised  and  long  since  destroyed),  and  a  Greco-Latin 
Ecclesiastical  Academy.  A  modest  capital  of  civilisation, 
easy  of  assimilation,  stood  ready  to  their  hand. 


Ill 

From  this  time  forward  Moscow  had  power  to  turn  her  back 
on  Asia,  and  re-enter  Europe,  without  crossing  the  frontier. 
That  Peter,  driven  out  of  the  Kreml,  and  into  the  street,  as 
it  were,  by  the  rival  faction,  felt  no  desire  to  return  to  his 
ancestral  dwelling,  must  be  written  down  to  the  fact  th.at  he 
had  found  another  and  a  more  attractive  home  in  its  close 
vicinity.  When  Ivan  annexed  Novgorod, — that  stronghold 
of  republicanism  and  insubordination, — he  resolved  to  break 
its  turbulent  spirit  by  changing  its  population.  Ten  thousand 
families  had  thus  to  be  removed.  Russia  owns  the  secret  of 
these  successful  administrative  coups  d'etat,  whereby  whole 
masses  of  humanity  are  set  in  physical  motion.  The  exiled 
Novgorodians  departed  to  Moscow,  where  room  was  made 
for  them,  by  sending  an  equal  number  of  faithful  and  docile 
Moscovians — their  very  docility  their  punishment — to  Nov- 
gorod. These  new  arrivals  included  certain  Hanseatic 
merchants,  who  formed  the  first  nucleus  of  the  foreign 
colony  on  the  banks  of  the  Moskva.  But  it  soon  became 
evident,  to  Russian  eyes,  that  these  foreigners  profaned  the 
place.  Local  patriotism  found  its  interest,  even  at  that  date, 
in  claiming  that  Moscow  was  a  holy  city,  and  then,  as  now, 
the  whole  of  Muscovy  joined  in  this  beatification.  Bej'ond 
the  gates  of  the  old  caj^ital,  towards  the  north-western  corner 
of  the  modern  city,  in  the  quarter  lying  between  Basmannaia 
Street  and  Pokrovskaia  Street,  where,  at  the  present  day, 
most  of  the  Protestant  and  Catholic  churches  stand,  there 


l6  PETER  THE  GREAT 

arose, — on  the  banks  of  the  laouza,  a  scanty  afniiciit  of  the 
Moskva, — a  kind  of  Ghetto,  specially  assigned  to  the  Nictnts)\ 
those  who  did  not  speak  the  tontjjiie  of  the  country,  and  who, 
in  conse(]ucncc,  were  nicttioi,  dumb.  The  Hansc  merchants 
prospered  little  here,  but,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  Tsar 
Vassili  lodged  his  bodj-guard  of  Poles,  Lithuanians,  and 
Germans  in  the  quarter.  Vassili's  successors  brought  in  not 
foreign  soldiers  only — they  sent  abroad  for  artisans  and 
artists,  and,  before  long,  for  schoolmasters.  An  engraving 
in  Adelung's  curious  book  depicts  the  primitive  appearance 
of  the  suburb,  where  the  immigrants  were  crowded  together, 
shut  up  and  hemmed  in,  by  severe  and  successive  edicts.  It 
was  still  a  mere  village  of  wooden  houses,  roughly  built  with 
unbarked  tree-trunks,  —  huge  kitchen  gardens  surrounding 
each  dwelling.  But  a  rapid  change  was  working  both  in  the 
appearance  of  the  place,  and  in  the  nature  of  its  inhabitants. 
Under  Tsar  Alexis,  the  only  German  quality  about  the 
Nicviictskaia  Sloboda  was  the  name,  or  sobriquet,  of  Nicniicts^ 
which  had  clung  to  the  suburb — a  relic  of  the  German  origin 
of  its  original  inhabitants.  English  and  Scotchmen  now 
held  the  foremost  place,  and  among  them — thanks  to  the 
proscriptions  of  Lord  Protector  Cromwell,  there  were  many 
noble  names — Drummonds,  Hamiltons,  Dalziels,  Crawfurds, 
Grahams,  Leslies,  and,  at  a  later  period,  Gordons.  No 
Frenchmen  as  yet.  They  were  coldly  looked  on,  as  Catholics, 
and,  yet  more,  as  Jansenists.  The  Jacobites  were  the  only 
exceptions  to  this  rule, —  their  proscribed  condition  being 
taken  to  vouch  for  their  fidelity. 

Later  on,  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  was  to 
earn  the  same  confidence  for  the  subjects  of  the  Most 
Christian  King.  The  Jacobites  lived  somewhat  apart.  They 
were  no  traders,  nor  in  any  way  industrious.  Yet  they 
were  a  powerful  factor  in  the  budding  prosperity  of  the 
Sloboda.  Their  education  and  demeanour  inspired  the 
Muscovites  with  a  sense  of  respect.  The  German  troopers 
of  the  first  period  had  taught  the  natives  nothing,  save  the 
manners  of  Wallenstcin's  camp.  In  the  professional  class, 
soon  to  be  added  to  this  ari.stocratic  one — merchants,  tcaciiers, 
physicians,  apothecaries,  traders,  artists — the  dominant  ele- 
ment was  Dutch  ;  but  the  quality  of  the  German  contingent, 
mingled  with  it,  improved.  Both  nationalities  brought  with 
them,  and  exenifilified,  the  special  \iitues  of  their  race  ; — a 


THE  KREML,  AND  THE  GERMAN  FAUBOURG    17 

spirit  of  enterprise,  perseverance,  piety,  family  affection,  a 
common  aspiration  towards  an  ideal  of  order,  of  domestic 
peace,  and  fruitful  toil.  The  Dutch  had  a  Calvinist,  the 
Germans,  two  Lutheran  pastors ;  but,  face  to  face  with 
the  barbarians,  religious  dissension  appears  to  have  died 
away.  Liberty  reigned  in  the  Sloboda,  save  in  the  case  of 
the  Catholics,  who  were  forbidden  to  have  a  priest.  Schools 
became  numerous.  Patrick  Gordon,  a  Scotchman,  followed 
the  proceedings  of  the  London  Royal  Society.  English 
ladies  sent  for  bales  of  novels  and  poetry  by  British  writers. 
Pleasure  was  moderate  and  decent  in  its  course.  At 
German  gatherings,  the  dance  known  as  ^  Grossvatertanz' 
was  considered  the  wildest  form  of  entertainment.  There 
was  a  theatre,  frequented  by  Tsar  Alexis,  where  he  saw  a 
performance  of  Orphee. 

Politics  played  a  considerable  part  in  the  life  of  the 
colony.  The  members  of  the  Diplomatic  Corps,  who  all 
resided  in  it,  the  English,  Dutch,  Danish,  and  Swedish 
residents,  represented  the  interests,  or  stirred  the  passions, 
of  the  various  Protestant  powers.  The  Dutch  resident,  Van 
Keller — rich,  cultivated,  cautious,  and  adroit — held  .quite  a 
special  position,  before  which  the  Muscovites  themselves 
respectfully  bowed.  He  sent  a  weekly  messenger  to  the 
Hague,  and  the  Western  news  he  thus  received  made  the 
Sloboda  quiver  to  the  echo  of  those  great  events  which  were 
then  working  out  the  political  fate  of  the  European  world.^ 
The  German  traveller,  Tanner,^  who  visited  the  colony  in 
1678,  carried  away  a  most  pleasing  impression,  confirmed 
and  justified  by  an  engraving  dated  early  in  the  eighteenth 
century. 

This  shows  us  the  suburb  utterly  transformed.  Comfort- 
able-looking brick  houses,  approached  through  flowery 
gardens,  straight  alleys  planted  with  trees,  fountains  in  the 
squares.  The  contrast  with  Russian  towns  of  the  period, 
Moscow  not  excepted,  is  very  striking.  It  was  not  to  escape 
the  eye  of  Peter  the  Great. 

In  spite  of  Polish  influence,  in  spite  of  its  near  neighbour- 
hood to  a  country  which  brought  Europe,  so  to  speak,  to  its 

^  VulHcmin,  after  Posselt,  Rcvuc  Suisse,  vol.  xxix.  p.  323.  Briickner,  Cultitr- 
hisforisc/ie  Stuiiien  (Riga,  187S). 

-  Tanner,  Legatio  Poloiio  —  Liihuanica  in  Moscoviam  (Nuremberg,  1689), 
p.  71,  etc. 


i8  PETER  THE  GREAT 

very  gates,  Moscow  was  still,  take  it  all  in  all,  what  three 
centuries  of  Asiatic  slavery  had  made  it.  Some  sijjjns  tiicre 
were,  indeed,  which  clearly  marked  a  bej];inning  of  mental 
contact  with  the  intellectual  world  of  the  West.  Certain 
men  here  and  there  had  cast  off,  plu'sicaily  and  morally,  the 
ancient  B\v.antine  Tartar  garb.  Ideas  were  shooting  up, 
some  originating  power  had  shown  itself,  a  whole  programme 
of  reform,  a  more  extended  one,  as  will  later  on  appear,  than 
that  which  Peter  himself  undertook  to  execute,  had  been 
sketched  out.^ 

The  dawn  of  the  new  day  was  blushing  in  the  sky  ;  but 
the  growing  light  fell  only  on  a  chosen  and  restricted 
circle.  Tsar  Alexis  did  not,  like  Ivan,  put  out  artists'  eyes, 
on  the  plea  of  thus  preventing  them  from  reproducing  their 
masterpieces  ;  but  when  Tsar  Michael  took  it  into  his  head 
to  engage  the  services  of  the  famous  Oelschlager  (Olcarius). 
there  was  talk  of  throwing  the  'sorcerer'  into  the  river,  the 
court  mutinied,  and  the  city  was  in  an  uproar.  Another 
foreigner,  who  entertained  some  prominent  Russian  lords  at 
dinner,  saw  them,  to  his  astonishment,  lay  violent  hands  on 
everything  on  the  table,  and  fill  their  pockets!"-  Within 
the  Krcml,  after  the  Poles  and  mock  Tsars  were  banished, 
nothing  changed  a  jot.  Before  Peter  himself  was  driven 
out,  he  never  saw  any  faces  but  those  of  his  immediate 
circle.  When  he  went  to  church,  or  to  the  bath,  a  double 
row  of  dwarfs,  carrying  red  silken  curtains,  followed  him, 
a  moving  prison,  always  with  him.-^  The  child  was  almost 
stifled.  At  Preobrajenskoi'e  he  began  to  breathe  again. 
One  day — back  in  the  open  air  at  last,  and  free  to  move 
about  at  will — he  will  wander  to  the  banks  of  the  laouza, 
and  once  he  has  seen  the  Sioboda,  he  will  not  care  to  leave 
it.     He  will  call  all  Russia  to  follow  him  thither. 

But  dark  times  are  before  him  }-et, — the  su[n-eme  test  and 
ordeal  of  the  Asiatic  system. 

'  This  point  of  view  has  led  certain  historians  into  paradoxical  exat^ijoralion. 
v.  Klioulchewslci,  Lessons  in  History  i^ir'cn  at  the  Moscow  L'nivcrsity,  1SS7-1.SS9 
(iithof^raphed).  I  owe  my  knowledge  of  this  work  to  the  kindness  of  Mr. 
Stchukin,  a  young  Russian  savanl  living  in  Paris,  to  wliom  I  herehy  beg  lo 
tender  my  i^rateful  thanks. 

^  Solovief,  vol.  xiv.  p.   1 1 2. 

•  Kotoshihin,  A'«w;'ti  (/«;///;,•  the  Keii^n  of  Alexis  (.St.  l'eler^1>ur<j,  1SS4),  p.  19. 


THE  KREML,  AND  THE  GERMAN  FAUBOURG    19 


IV 

In  1682  Feodor,  eldest  son  and  successor  of  Alexis,  died 
childless.  Who  was  to  be  his  heir?  Since  the  death  of  the 
last  descendant  of  Rurik  (1598)  the  throne  had  almost 
always  been  won  by  a  revolution.  Boris  Godunof  gained 
it  by  a  series  of  assassinations.  Dimitri  conquered  it  by 
Polish  swords.  Vassili  Shuiski  owed  it  to  his  election  by 
the  nobles.  Michael  Romanof  to  the  voice  of  the  people. 
Although  some  shadow  of  dynastic  title  grew  out  of  this 
last  selection,  the  accession  of  Alexis  is  believed  to  have 
been  preceded  by. an  appeal  to  popular  suffrage. 

Of  Feodor's  two  younger  brothers,  one,  fifteen  years  old, 
— Ivan,  the  son  of  the  Miloslavski, — was  sickly,  three  parts 
blind,  and  more  than  half  an  idiot.  A  communication 
addressed  in  1648  to  the  ministers  of  Louis  XIV.  mentions 
a  'growth  on  the  eyelids,  which  prevents  the  young  Prince 
from  seeing  anything,  unless  they  are  lilted  up.'  The  great 
dignitaries  of  the  Crown  pronounced  unanimously  in  favour 
of  Peter,  the  son  of  the  Nar3'shkin,  younger  than  his 
brother  by  some  five  years.  They  shrank,  so  they  averred, 
from  being  converted  from  court  officials  into  sick-nurses. 
Doubtless  the  youth  of  the  second  brother  gave  them 
fair  hope  of  a  longer  period  of  practical  interregnum, 
during  which  they  might  continue  to  wield  power.  They 
swept  the  boyards,  who  chanced  to  be  present  at  Feodor's 
death,  and  the  patriarch  Joachim,  who  had  given  him  the 
last  sacraments,  along  with  them.  Here,  as  in  Poland, 
a  vacancy  on  the  throne  conferred  a  sort  of  intermediate 
sovereignty  on  the  Head  of  the  Church.  Thus,  in  1598, 
the  patriarch  Job  ensured  the  triumph  of  Boris.  There  was 
nothing  legal  in  what  happened  then,  any  more  than  in 
what  took  place  now.  The  prelate  harangued  the  officers 
and  courtiers  who  chanced  to  be  within  the  Kreml,  and 
made  a  brief  appeal  for  their  votes,  which  were  given  by 
acclamation.  The  improvised  electors  appeared  outside 
the  palace,  on  the  Red  Staircase,  before  the  crowd  attracted 
by  the  rumour  of  the  great  events  which  had  set  the  Court 
aflame.  A  name  flimg  to  the  mob, —  and  the  thing  was  done. 
Russia  had  a  Tsar,  and  that  Tsar's  name  was  Peter. 

Not   a   word    of   Ivan.     Not    an    attempt    to  justify  the 


2C  I'ETER  THE  GREAT 

violence  done,  ill  his  person,  to  all  the  lavvsof  hcredit)-.  The 
coup  was  nothintj,  in  fact,  but  a  victory  won  by  the  Nar)'sh- 
kin  over  the  Miloslavski,  —  taken  by  surprise,  no  doubt, 
and  left  defenceless,  by  the  suddenness  of  the  crisis,  and 
the  swiftness  of  the  denouement.  An  ephemeral  triumph, 
indeed,  which  scarcely  lasted  a  month.  On  the  very 
morrow  of  defeat,  the  vanquished  faction  re-entered  the 
lists,  backed  by  two  unforeseen  allies,  two  new  political 
factors,  destined  to  change  the  whole  face  of  the  struggle — 
the  Tsarevna  Sophia,  and  the  Strcltsy} 

^  Sum.irokof,  Dtr  ErsU  Aufstm,!  der  Strclilzen  (Riija,  1772),  p.  10. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   TSAREVNA   SOrillA 

I.  The  terem  of  the  Kreml — Moscow  and  Byzantium — Memories  of  Pulchcria 

— By  the  Tsar's  death-bed — Ambition  and  Love — VassiH  Galitzin. 
II.   The  Streltsy—'Y\\e\x  greatness  and  their  downfall — Soldiers  and  Merchants 

—  Symptoms    and    causes    of   revolt — Popular    movements — Sophia    and 
Galitzin  desire  to  use  the  revolt  to  conquer  power — The  Kreml  besieged 

—  Three   da}s  of  carnage — Sophia's  bloodstained  power — Peter's  down- 
fall—  Ivan's  enthronement — A  twin  throne — The  Regent. 

ir.  The  real  Regent — An  Idyll,  and  a  domestic  Drama — Dreams  for  the  future 
— The  stumliling-block. 

\\.  The  childhood  of  Peter  the  Great — Exile — Open-air  life — Studies  and 
games — The  Astrolabe— The  English  boat — Soldier  and  Sailor — Preo- 
brajtnskc)ie  camp,  and  the  Lake  of  Pereiaslavl — His  companions — The 
first-fruits  of  reform — Rough  models  of  an  Army,  a  Navy,  a  Society. 

V.  Youth — Mairiage  — Eudoxia  Lapouhine — Early  widowhood — Peter  returns 
to  his  pleasures — Swept  on  by  the  current— The  maker  carried  away  by 
his  work — The  instrument  of  a  party  —  Aristocratic  opjiosition — Peter  iis 
leader — Betwixt  two  civilisations — Roman  Europe  and  Protestant  Europe 
— The  choice — Preparation  for  the  struggle — The  convulsion. 


In  1682,  seven  of  Alexis'  daughters  were  still  living.  One 
alone,  Sophia,  has  left  a  name  in  history.  Born,  like  Ivan, 
of  the  Miloslavski  consort,  she  had  already  reached  her 
twenty-sixth  year.  I  have  alluded  to  her  beauty  ;  certain 
Russian  writers,  notably  Sumarokof,  and  some  foreigners 
even — such  as  Strahlenberg  and  Perry, — praise  it  very 
liighly.  None  of  them  ever  saw  the  Tsarevna.  The  testi- 
mony of  the  Franco-Polish  diplomat,  La  Neuville,  who  had 
that  privilege,  is  more  conclusive.  He  spoils  the  romance 
in  which  Peter's  childhood  is  supposed  to  have  been 
mixed  up,  but  that  is  no  fault  of  mine.  'A  shapeless  body, 
monstrously  fat,  a  head  as  big  as  a  bushel  measure,  hair 
growing  on  her  face,  sores  on  her  legs,' — so  his  description 
runs.     The   Little -Russian   historian,   Kostomarof,  tries  to 

21 


22  PETER  THE  GREAT 

soften  matters.  Foreij^^ncrs,  he  hints,  mi.ijjht  think  Sophia 
U'j[ly,  but  she  may  still  have  possessed  <;rcat  charm  for  the 
Muscovites  of  her  own  tiine.  Excessive  corpulence,  even  as 
in  the  East  at  the  present  day,  was  not  likely  to  offend  their 
taste.  But  the  silence,  on  this  point,  of  the  Monk  Micdvic- 
dicf,  the  Princess's  confidant  and  devoted  servant,  coupled 
with  his  persistent  praise  of  her  moral  qualities,  is  very 
significant. 

On  this  latter  question,  every  one,  even  La  Neuville,  seems 
agreed.  'She  is  as  acute,  subtle,  and  shrewd  in  mind,  as 
slie  is  broad,  short,  and  coarse  in  person.  And  though  she 
has  never  read  Machiavelli,  nor  learnt  anything  about  him, 
all  his  maxims  come  naturally  to  her.' 

Up  till  the  year  1682,  Sophia's  life  had  resembled, 
— outwardly,  at  all  events, — that  of  all  Russian  girls  of  her 
time,  aggravated,  as  in  the  case  of  persons  of  her  great 
rank,  by  the  increased  severity  of  its  retirement.  The 
terciii  of  the  Kreml  exceeded  all  others  in  this  respect.  It 
enforced  solitude,  minute  and  complicated  acts  of  devotion, 
and  frequent  fasting.  The  Patriarch,  and  the  nearest 
relations,  were  the  only  visitors.  The  physician  was  only 
admitted  in  cases  of  very  serious  illness.  When  he  entered, 
the  shutters  were  closed,  and  he  had  to  feel  his  patient's 
pulse  through  a  covering.  The  Tsaritsa  and  the  Tsarevny 
passed  through  secret  passages  into  the  church,  where  the 
inevitable  red  silk  curtains  screened  them  from  the  curiosity 
of  other  worshippers.  In  1674,  two  young  lords,  Butourlin 
and  Dashkof,  turning  the  corner  of  one  of  the  inner  courts  of 
the  palace,  came  suddenly  upon  a  carriage,  in  which  the 
Tsaritsa  was  driving,  on  pilgrimage  to  a  monastery.  This 
accident  endangered  their  necks.  There  was  a  searching 
inquiry,  which  even  took  them  as  far  as  to  the  torture- 
chamber.  The  princesses  had  no  allotted  place  in  any  of 
the  solemnities,  which,  in  the  case  of  the  rest  of  the  Court, 
occasionally  broke  the  hideous  monotony  of  a  life  bound  by 
rigid  and  unchanging  etiquette.  Thc\'  never  appeared, 
except  at  funerals,  when  they  followed  the  bier,  always 
impenetrably  veiled.  The  nation  knew  nothing  of  them, 
save  their  names,  spoken  daily  in  the  pra^'ers  of  the  official 
liturgy.  They  knew  nothing  of  it — nothing,  so  to  speak, 
of  human  life,  beyond  the  narrow  circle  within  which  fate 
had  imprisoned  them.     Unable,  on  account  of  their  rarik,  to 


THE  TSAREVNA  SOPHIA  23 

marry  any  subject,  debarred,  by  their  religion,  from  alliance 
with  any  foreign  prince,  they  were  doomed  never  to  know 
love,  nor  marriage,  nor  maternity.     So  the  law  willed  it. 

Probably,  even  at  that  date,  some  compromise  was 
admitted,  Otherwise  Sophia  would  certainly  never  have 
been  able  to  play,  and  at  a  moment's  notice,  the  part  in 
which  we  shall  shortly  see  her  appear.  On  27th  April 
1682,  Peter  was  proclaimed  Tsar.  On  the  23rd  of  the 
following  month,  a  revolt  of  the  Strcltsy  had  overthrown 
his  sole  rule,  and  associated  his  brother  Ivan  with  him  on 
the  throne.  Everything  points  to  the  fact  that  Sophia  was 
the  arch  inspirer  of  this  amp  d'etat — nay,  more,  that,  for 
the  most  part,  it  was  her  handiwork. 

The  tcrcm  of  the  Kreml  must  have  felt  the  direct  influence 
of  Byzantine  ideas,  with  all  that  historic  mingling  of 
asceticism  and  intrigue,  which  made  up  the  life  of  the  Lower 
Empire.  Sophia  and  her  sisters,  watching  by  the  bedside 
of  their  d}'ing  brother,  must  have  called  up  memories  of 
Pulcheria,  the  daughter  of  Arcadius,  who  seized  the  reins  of 
power  during  the  minority  of  Theodosius,  and  held  them  after 
his  death,  with  the  help  of  Martian,  chief  of  the  Imperial 
Guard.  Some  beating  of  wings  against  that  barred  cage 
there  must  have  been, — body  and  soul  alike  rising  in  revolt, 
some  dreams  of  liberty  and  love.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  doubt- 
less, most  palace  revolutions  had  their  source  in  such 
hidden  emotions.  Sophia  certainly  saw  some  male  faces 
within  the  Kreml,  besides  that  of  the  Patriarch,  or  even 
those  of  her  near  kinsmen,  the  Miloslavski, — energetic  men, 
but  dull-minded.  Feodor,  who  kept  his  bed  long  before  the 
end,  needed  a  woman's  care.  A  member  of  his  immediate 
circle  was  ready  to  incite  him  to  break  the  tcrcm  rule,  by 
taking  his  nurse  from  within  its  walls,  and  to  recommend 
Sophia  to  his  notice.     That  man  was  Vassili  Galitzin. 

A  remarkable  man,  in  more  ways  than  one.  In  con- 
temporary Russian  history,  in  Peter's  own  life-history,  he 
marks  a  period.  Better,  because  more  clearly  than  Mat- 
vicief,  he  indicates  that  slow  preparation,  that  intellectual 
and  moral  evolution,  the  extent  of  which  may  indeed  have 
been  exaggerated  since — but  which  certainly  did  precede 
the  appearance  of  the  great  Refor'"jer,  and  rendered  his 
work  possible.  He  personifies  that  elite  of  which  I  have 
already    spoken,    amongst     whom    such    men    as    Morozof, 


24  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Ordin  Nashtshokin,  and  the  Patriarch  Nicone  himself,  had 
ah-ead)',  in  preceding  reigns,  inaugurated  a  new  period, 
an  era  of  revolution.  After  playing  an  important  part,  for 
several  years,  in  the  government  of  his  country,  Vassili  was 
concerned  in  the  abolition  of  the  Micstnitc/icstvo — an  essen- 
tially Abiatic  custom,  in  virtue  of  which  no  subject  of  the 
Tsar  could  occupy,  with  regard  to  a  fellow-subject,  any 
position  inferior  to  that  which  one  of  his  forebears  might 
have  occupied,  in  relation  to  an  ancestor  of  the  said  fellow- 
subject — thus  forming  an  insurmountable  obstacle  to  any 
wise  selection  by  merit,  an  endless  source  of  wrangling, 
whereby  the  action  of  the  Government  was  much  enfeebled. 

He  thought  of  organising  a  regular  army.  According  to 
La  Neuville,  he  carried  his  plans  for  the  future  further  yet, 
and  had  dreams — far  beyond  anything  Peter  dared  attempt — 
of  freeing  the  serfs,  and  making  them  peasant  proprietors. 
Father  Avril  himself,  in  spite  of  his  having  been  detained 
in  Moscow,  and  prevented  from  going  to  China,  during  the 
period  when  the  future  Regent  was  all-powerful,  pa}-s  homage 
to  his  libcral-mindedness.  The  other  boyards,  in  tiieir 
hatred  for  Catholicism,  overruled  their  colleague's  decision.^ 

Galitzin  spoke  and  wrote  Latin  with  elegance  and  ease. 
Me  was  constantly  in  the  German  suburb,  and  was  in  close 
relations  with  its  inhabitants ;  he  received  Gordon  the 
Scotchman  at  his  own  table,  and  vv'as  himself  attended  by 
a  German  doctor,  l^lumcntrost.  The  Greek,  Sj^afari,  who 
constantly  appears  in  his  circle,  and  who,  by  his  favour,  held 
a  prominent  position  in  the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs 
{Posolskii  Prikac),  was  quite  a  modern  type  of  courtier-like 
diplomacy,  and  cosmopolitan  experience,  who  liad  travelled 
the  whole  of  Europe,  and  into  China,  who  drew  out  plans 
for  the  navigation  of  the  great  Asiatic  rivers,  and  corre- 
sponded with  Witsen,  the  Burgomaster  of  Amsterdam. 

Galitzin's  palace,  within  and  without,  bore  every  resem- 
blance to  an  important  European  dwelling,  full  of  valuable 
furniture,  Gobelins  tapestries,  pictures,  tall  mirrors.  He 
had  a  library  of  Latin,  Polish,  and  German  books.  This 
library  was  later  to  contain  the  manuscripts  of  Krijanitch, 
a  Servian,  and  apostle  of  reforms,  to  whom  Peter,  very 
probably,  may  have  owed  his  inspiration.  He  had  three 
thousand  houses  built  in   Moscow,  and  even   built  a  stone 

*    J'oyaq^e  en  divers  pays  de  f  Europe  (P.iris,  1692),  p.  314. 


THE  TSAREVNA  SOPHIA  25 

bridge, — the  first  ever  seen  in  the  countr}-, — for  which  a  Poh'sh 
monk  supplied  the  plan.  He  had  a  passionate  affection  for 
France,  and  caused  his  son  constantly  to  wear  a  portrait  of 
Louis  XlV.^v 

His  fall,  and  Peter's  accession,  ensuing  on  it,  arc  honestly 
held  by  La  Neuville,  to  be  a  catastrophe  for  civilisation. 
He  did  indeed  still  cling,  to  a  certain  extent,  to  the  era  he 
was  striving  to  abolish.  He  was  not  free  from  superstition. 
He  put  a  peasant,  whom  he  suspected  of  trying  to  cast  an 
evil  spell  on  him,  to  the  torture.'-^  He  was  accused,  in  later 
days,  of  having  tried  to  gain  Sophia's  favours  by  means  of 
a  love-philter,  and  of  having  caused  the  man  who  prepared 
the  potion  to  be  burnt. ^  But  Peter  himself  was  not  altogether 
free  from  weaknesses  of  this  kind.  Take  him  altogether, 
this  man,  who  was  to  end  by  being  one  of  the  young  Tsar's 
adversaries,  began  by  being  his  worthy  forerunner. 

Born  in  1643,  Vassili  Galitzin  was  thirty-nine  years  old 
when  Fcodor's  illness  brought  him  into  Sophia's  company. 
He  was  married,  with  tall  children  of  his  own.  With  him 
there  stood,  beside  the  dying  man's  pillow,  Simon  Polotski,  a 
Little-Russian  priest,  a  man  of  great  knowledge  for  those 
times,  Silvester  Miedviedief,  a  learned  monk,  a  bibliographer 
and  court  poet,  and  Hovanski,  a  soldier,  much  favoured 
by  the  Stjr/lsy.  Thus  a  political  group,  the  elements  of 
which  may  have  previously  drawn  together,  and  fused  in  the 
dark  shadow,  was  here  assembled,  Miedviedief  was  the  soul 
of  the  combination,  but  Galitzin  held  the  foremost  place 
by  Sophia's  side,  and  held  it  by  the  power  of  love. 

The  Tsarevna  was  twenty-five,  and,  to  La  Neuville's  eyes, 
looked  forty.  Naturally  hot-blooded  and  passionate,  she  had 
never,  as  yet,  felt  the  full  current  of  life  ;  and  when,  at  one  and 
the  same  moment,  her  mind  and  heart  awoke,  she  cast  her- 
self into  the  stream  fearlessly,  furiously, — surrendered  herself 
utterly  to  the  mighty  flood  which  carried  her  along  with  it. 
Ambition  came  to  her  with  love.  She  naturally  associated 
the  man  without  whom  success  would  have  had  no  charm 
for  her,  with  her  ambitious  projects.  She  incited  him, 
more  than  he  her,  to  scale  the  heights  of  fortune  they 
might  share  together.      Personally,  he  appears  to  us  timid, 

^  Solovicf,  I/istojy  of  Russia,  vol.  xiv.  p.  97.     Avril,  p.  296. 

^  J'.-liaboujski,  Memoirs  (Tazykop  edition),  p.  21. 

^  Qustrialof,  History  of  Peter  the  Great,  vol.  ii.  pp.  48,  344. 


26  PETER  THE  GREAT 

suspicious,  irresolute — he  soon  gives  signs  of  dizziness  and 
distress.  He  would  even  draw  back  at  the  supreme  moment, 
but  for  Miedvicdief  and  Ilovanski.  Miedvicdicf  spurs  the 
conspirators  onward,  inspires  them  with  his  own  passion, 
his  own  feverish  love  of  combat.  Ilovanski  suj)plies  the 
formidable  weapon  he  needs,  for  the  successful  carrying  out 
of  his  designs. 

II 

In  1682  the  Strcltsy — called  into  existence  by  Ivan  the 
Terrible  and  his  companion  in  arms,  Adashef — had  but  a 
short  record  and  a  somewhat  tarnished  glory  behind  them. 
Yet,  such  as  it  was,  they  had  contrived  to  turn  it  into  a 
capital,  on  which  they  lived  in  liberal  fashion.  Free  men, 
all  of  them,  soldiers  from  father  to  son,  they  formed  a 
privileged  military  class,  in  the  midst  of  the  general  servi- 
tude, and  their  very  privileges  had  won  them  an  importance 
quite  out  of  proportion  with  their  natural  business  and 
service.  They  were  lodged,  equipped,  and  paid  by  the 
state,  in  times  of  peace,  while  other  free  men  were 
forced  to  serve  unpaid,  and  at  their  own  charges,  even  in 
time  of  war.  They  had  a  special  administration  of  their 
own,  and  a  separate  commandant,  who  was  always  an  im- 
portant boyard.  In  times  of  peace  they  kept  order  in  the 
streets,  did  patrol  duty,  furnished  sentries,  and  guards  of 
honour,  and  served  as  firemen.  One  regiment  of  picked 
men  {Stroiiiannyi),  ('  the  spur  regiment ' )  attended  the 
Tsar  whenever  he  went  beyond  the  city  walls.  In  war  time 
the  Streltsy  formed  the  vanguard  and  the  backbone  of  his 
army.  There  were  twenty  regiments  at  Moscow,  eight 
hundred  to  one  thousand  men  in  each,  distinguished  by  the 
colour  of  their  uniforms — red,  blue,  or  green  kaftans  with 
broad  red  belts,  yellow  boots,  and  velvet  fur  trimmed  caps, — 
and  a  varying  number  in  the  provinces.  Their  military 
duties  not  filling  all  their  time,  they  went  into  trade  and 
manufactures;  and,  seeing  they  paid  neither  licence  nor  taxes, 
they  easily  grew  rich.  Hence  many  well-to-do  burgesses  of 
Moscow  prayed  for  leave  to  be  inscribed  upon  their  lists,  but 
they  were  an  exclusive  set,  and  would  have  no  intruders.^ 

It   was  to  them   that   Boris    Godunof  owed    his   victory 

'  Oustrialof,  vol.  1.  p.  17,  etc.  Berg,  The  l\cign  of  Tsar  Ft'odor  (Petersburg, 
1829),  vol.  ii.  p.  36,  etc.  Ilerrmnnn,  GeschichU  Ktisslands  (Goth.i,  1846-1860), 
vol.  iv.  p.  I ,  etc. 


THE  TSAREVNA  SOPHIA  27 

over  the  Samoavauiets  Dimitri ;  under  Tsar  Michael,  they 
captured  Marina  Mniszech  and  her  last  partisan,  Zaroutski  ; 
they  took  Smolensk  from  the  Poles  under  Alexis,  and  de- 
fended Tshiguirin  against  the  Turks,  under  Feodor.  During 
the  long  internal  and  external  crisis  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  they  constantly  took  sides  with  the  regular  power, 
they  conquered  Rasin,  the  rebel  Cossack,  and  practically 
saved  the  monarchy  ;  but  the  troubles  of  that  time  reacted 
on  them,  set  up  the  ferment  of  agitation  in  their  ranks. 

Idleness  completed  the  work  of  corruption.  These  natural 
champions  of  order  had,  for  some  time  before  the  period  of 
which  I  write,  been  making  common  cause  with  insurgents 
of  all  kinds,  even  giving  the  signal  for  riots.  Riots,  among 
the  lower  classes,  had  indeed  become  the  order  of  the 
day.  Official  greed  and  corruption,  and  all  their  consequent 
abuses,  had  revolted  the  popular  soul.  Here,  too,  in  this 
half- formed  society,  face  to  face  with  a  rotting  State,  the 
way  was  prepared  for  Peter's  coming.  Though  with  less 
cause  for  complaint,  the  Streltsy  raised  their  voices  above 
those  of  all  other  grumblers.  Their  soldierly  qualities,  as 
was  soon  to  be  proved,  had  become,  and  were  to  remain,  less 
than  indifferent.  But  they  were  terrible  brawlers.  A  day 
of  tempest  was  to  convert  them,  ere  long,  into  the  fiercest 
of  ruffians.  Alarming  symptoms  were  evident  among  them 
before  Fcodor's  death.  The  regiment  of  Siemion  Griboicdof 
rose  against  its  colonel,  accusing  him  of  peculation  ; — of 
stealing  their  pay  and  forcing  them  to  work  on  the  building 
of  a  country  house  of  his,  on  Sundays.  Thanks  to  the 
weakness  of  the  Government,  standing  between  a  dying 
Sovereign,  and  heirs  still  in  their  childhood,  the  contagion 
spread.  When  the  Naryshkins  came  to  power  with  Peter, 
they  found  sixteen  regiments  in  a  flame.  Sorely  puzzled, 
they  sent  for  the  exiled  Matvicief,  the  founder  of  their 
fortunes,  the  experienced  statesman  ;  and,  pending  the 
arrival  of  their  saviour,  they  sacrificed  the  colonels  of  the 
regiments.  The  pravicje,  a  punishment  reserved  for  in- 
solvent debtors,  was  applied.  Before  the  assembled  troops, 
the  incriminated  officers  were  beaten  with  rods  on  the  fleshy 
parts  of  their  legs,  until  they  disgorged  all  their  really,  or 
presumedly,  ill-gotten  gains.  This  torture  lasted  many  hours, 
but  did  not  kill  the  colonels.  But  all  discipline  v;as  destroyed, 
and   the  wild   beast  thus   unmuzzled   in   the  ranks   of  this 


28  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Prctorian  Guard,  only  waited  the  appearance  of  an  easy 
prey  to  make  its  sprin*:^  and  use  its  claws.  Sophia  and  her 
councillors  offered  it  the  Xaryshkin  party. 

The  stroke  was  prepared,  the  insurrection  planned,  swiftly 
and  boldly, — cynically  too,  almost  openly.  The  Tsarevna's 
uncle,  Ivan  Miloslavski,  denounced  in  later  years  by  Peter 
as  the  chief  author  of  the  shameful  deed,  and  hunted  by 
him  with  savage  hatred  to  his  grave,  made  himself  desper- 
ately busy,  spreading  h'ing  tales,  fanning  the  tiamcs  of  rage. 
There  was  a  story  that  the  Narj-shkins  had  poisoned 
Ft§odor,  that  they  were  ill-using  Peter's  elder  brother,  the 
dispossessed  Tsarevitch,  that  one  of  the  family  desired  to 
mount  the  throne.  A  Naryshkin,  followed  by  a  troop  of 
armed  men,  was  seen  ill-treating  the  wife  of  one  of  the 
Siirltsy.  He  was  an  agent  of  the  Miloslavski  in  disguise. 
Feodora  Rodinitsa,  a  confidant  of  So]:)hia's,  went  about  the 
streets,  slipped  even  into  the  soldier's  quarters,  sowing 
venomous  words,  and  coin,  and  promises,  broadcast. 

But  the  conspirators  awaited  their  pre-arranged  signal, 
Matvieiefs  arrival.  The  Strdtsy,  perfect  in  their  part, 
welcomed  their  former  chief,  and  lulled  his  suspicions  to 
rest.  On  May  iith,  1682,  a  dejjutation  from  the  twenty 
regiments  brought  him  bread  and  salt.  '  Honey  on  a 
dagger's  point,'  said,  later,  the  son  of  the  unhappy  old  man, 
condemned,  doomed  to  his  death,  at  that  very  moment. 
Four  days  later,  at  dawn,  the  alarm  sounded  in  all  the 
Streltsy  quarters,  the  twenty  regiments  flew  to  arms,  and 
the  Kreml  was  besieged.  The  gay-coloured  kaftans  had 
been  put  aside  for  the  nonce,  and  the  Streltsy  all  wore  their 
red  shirts,  with  sleeves  rolled  elbow  high, —  fell  sign  of  the 
work  for  which  they  had  risen  so  early.  Soldiers  they  were 
no  more, — judges  rather,  and  executioners.  They  had  drunk 
deeply  before  starting,  and  wild  with  brandy,  even  before  they 
grew  mad  with  carnage,  they  yelled  in  fury,  brandishing  their 
halberts.  They  believed,  or  feigned  it,  that  Ivan  and  Peter 
himself  had  been  assassinated,  and  professed  to  desire  to 
avenge  their  deaths.  In  vain  were  the  Tsar  and  the  Tsarevitch 
brought  out  to  them,  safe  and  souml,  on  the  top  of  the  Red 
Staircase.  Desperate  efforts  were  made  to  appease  them, 
but  they  would  hear  nothing,  rccogm'se  no  one  ;  louder  and 
louder  they  yelled,  'Death  to  the  assassins.'  The  head  of  their 
own  prikaz  (office  of  management, — dcpariuicnt^,  the  aged 


THE  TSAREVNA  SOPHIA  29 

Dolgorouki,  came  out  upon  the  steps  to  call  them  to  order. 
Instantly  two  or  three  bolder  spirits  climbed  the  stairway, 
clutched  the  old  man,  and  threw  him  into  space,  while  others 
held  up  their  pikes  to  catch  him  as  he  fell.  ^  Lioubo ! 
Lionbo  ! '  'that's  good,  that  pleases  us,'  shouted  the  mob. 
The  massacre  had  begun.  It  lasted  three  days.  Sought 
out  one  by  one,  hunted  through  the  palace,  tracked  into  the 
neighbouring  houses,  into  churches, —  the  councillors  and 
relatives  of  Nathalia,  Matvieief,  all  the  Naryshkins,  shared 
Dolgorouki's  fate.  Some  were  slowly  tortured  to  their  end, 
dragged  by  their  hair  across  the  squares,  knouted,  burnt 
with  red-hot  irons,  chopped  up  piecemeal,  at  last,  with 
halbert  strokes.  Nathalia  made  a  desperate  struggle  before 
giving  up  Ivan,  her  favourite  brother.  He  finally  sur- 
rendered, of  his  own  free  will,  at  the  prayer  of  old  Prince 
Odoievski,  sacrificing  his  life  for  those  of  his  family,  which 
the  sav^age  Streltsy  undertook  to  spare.  After  having  par- 
taken of  holy  communion,  in  one  of  the  churches  within 
the  Kreml,  he  issued  forth,  clasping  like  a  shield,  in  that 
supreme  moment,  a  sacred  Icon.  Instantly  the  image  was 
dashed  from  his  grasp,  and  he  sank  in  the  sea  of  blood  and 
fury  which  still  beat  against  the  walls  of  the  old  palace. 
It  raged  further  yet,  dashing  over  the  town,  lapping  round 
private  dwellings  and  public  edifices,  wandering  hither  and 
thither  in  search  of  the  supposed  accomplices  of  an  im- 
aginary crime,  sacking  and  murdering  everywhere  as  it 
went.  The  rioters  even  fell  upon  the  city  archives,  and 
here  we  may  discern  a  political  intention — the  desire  to 
endue  their  excesses  with  a  popular  character, — an  impression 
existed  at  the  time  that  their  object  was  to  destroy  all 
documents  bearing  on  the  institution  of  serfdom. 

And  Sophia?  Historians  have  essayed  to  clear  her  from 
personal  responsibility.^  This  is  all  against  the  evidence. 
Never  was  the  maxim,  Is  fecit  cui  prodest,  better  applied. 
Many  vanquished  there  were,  in  those  terrible  days.  One 
conqueror  alone  appears,  Sophia.  So  thoroughly  does  she 
control  the  movement  that  she  stops  it,  dams  it  up,  the 
instant  she  is  so  minded.  A  few  words  from  Tsikler,  a 
mere  lay  figure,  suffice  to  restrain  the  most  furious  of  the 
rioters.  This  Tsikler  will  be  seen,  on  the  very  morrow 
of  the  convulsion,  in  the  Tsarcvna's  immediate  circle.     The 

'  Aristof,  Disturbances  at  Moscow,  during  the  Regency  of  Scfhia  (Warsaw,  i  S7 1 ). 


30  PETER  THE  GREAT 

most  important  posts,  too,  fall  to  her  former  friends 
Ilovan.ski,  Ivan  Miloslavski,  Vassili  Galitzin.  After  the 
hunt  the  quarry  is  divided.  She  takes  her  own  share  as  a 
natural  ri^jht.  Peter  still  remaininf:^  titular  Sovereign,  she 
holds  his  power,  as  dc  facto  Regent,  till  more  come  to  her. 
Finall}-,  she  gives  those  who  have  done  her  such  good 
service  their  reward.  To  the  Strcltsy,  ten  roubles  each  for 
their  pains,  and,  though  the  goods  of  their  victims,  which 
they  claim,  are  not  given  them  openly,  means  are  found  to 
afford  them  satisfaction,  by  putting  the  property  up  for 
sale,  and  reserving  them  the  right  of  purchase.  They  are 
tenderly  treated,  for  they  will  soon  be  needed  afresh.  And 
on  May  23rd  the>'  are  at  the  Kreml  again,  clamouring  to  have 
Ivan  associated  with  Peter  on  the  throne,  which,  thus  divided, 
will  be  more  easily  held  in  subjection.  Measures  have  been 
already  taken  to  have  the  Patriarch  and  a  ^e.\w  boyards  at 
hand,  there  is  talk  of  Joseph  and  Pharaoh,  of  Arcadius  and 
Honorius,  of  Basil  and  Constantine.  Michael  and  Philarctus, 
whose  sovereignty  left  unpleasing  memories  behind  it,  are 
entirely  o\-crlookcd.  There  is  another  mock  election,  and 
the  famous  double-seated  throne  is  set  up.  Even  this  does 
not  suffice.  Ivan,  infirm,  an  idiot,  must  have  precedence. 
More  rioting,  yet  another  sham  elective  assembly.  This 
time  Sophia  casts  off  tlie  mask  completely.  When  Ivan 
is  proclaimed  chief  Tsar,  the  rioters  are  feasted,  and  the 
Tsarevna  does  the  honours.  Their  hands,  like  their  shirts, 
are  bloodstained  still,  but  she  pours  wine  for  them  with 
her  own.  They  prove  their  gratitude  by  returning  on  the 
29th  of  May,  and  conferring  on  her  the  title  of  Regent. 

Ill 

She  has  gained  the  summit  at  last;  but  her  sole  object  In 
reaching  it,  at  the  price  of  so  many  crimes,  has  been  to  taste 
the  delights  of  power  with,  and  through,  the  chosen  one  of 
her  heart.  All  others  must  bow  before  him.  Her  will  is 
that  he  should  command.  During  her  seven  years  of 
regency  the  real  master  of  Russia — the  real  Regent — is 
Vassili  Galitzin. 

The  Tsarevna's  virtue,  like  her  political  honesty,  has 
found  defenders  ;  but  the  amorous  Princess  has  herself 
undertaken  the  task  of  enlightening  us  upon  the  point,  and 


THE  TSAREVNA  SOPHIA  31 

giving  the  facts  their  true  historical  values.  Five  years 
have  gone  by.  She  reigns  at  the  Kreml,  and  Galitzin  is 
bringing  a  disastrous  Crimean  campaign — she  alone  believes 
it  to  have  crowned  him  with  laurels — to  its  close.  Within  a 
short  time  he  is  to  be  with  her  at  Moscow,  and  she  writes — 
'  Batiiis/ika,  my  hope,  my  all,  God  grant  thee  many  years 
of  life.  This  is  a  day  of  deep  gladness  to  me,  for  God  our 
Saviour  has  glorified  His  name,  and  His  Mother's,  by  thee, 
my  all !  Never  did  divine  grace  manifest  itself  more  clearly. 
Never  did  our  ancestors  see  greater  proof  of  it.  Even  as 
God  used  Moses  to  lead  the  Israelites  out  of  Egypt,  so  has 
He  led  us  across  the  desert  by  thy  hand  !  Glory  be  to  Him, 
who  has  showed  us  His  infinite  mercy  by  thee!  What  can 
I  do,  oh  my  love,  to  fitly  recompense  thy  mighty  toil !  Oh 
my  joy,  oh  delight  of  my  eyes!  Dare  I  really  believe,  oh  my 
heart,  that  soon  I  shall  see  thee  again,  who  art  all  the  world 
to  me?  That  day  will  be  a  great  one  to  me,  which  brings 
thee  once  more  to  my  side,  oh  my  soul  !  if  that  were 
possible  I  would  recall  thee  now,  in  a  few  moments,  by 
some  magic  invocation.  Thy  letters  all  come  safely,  by 
God's  mercy.  The  news  of  the  battle  of  Perekop  arrived  on 
the  nth.  I  was  making  a  pilgrimage  that  day,  on  foot,  to 
the  monastery  of  the  Exaltation  of  the  Holy  Cross  ( Vozdvi- 
jenski).  Just  as  I  neared  the  convent  of  St.  Sergius,  thy 
messenger  joined  me.  I  hardly  know  how  the  rest  of  my 
journey  was  accomplished.  I  read  as  I  walked  along. 
How  shall  I  prove  my  gratitude  to  God,  to  His  Blessed 
Mother,  to  the  merciful  Saint  Sergius,  worker  of  miracles? 
Thou  biddest  me  give  alm.s  to  the  convents,  I  have  loaded 
them  all  with  gifts.  I  have  gone  on  pilgrimage  to  every 
one,  on  foot,  as  to  the  finst.  The  medals  are  not  ready  yet. 
Have  no  care  for  them  ;  the  moment  they  are  ready  I  will 
send  them.  Thou  wouldst  have  me  pray  ?  I  do  pray,  and 
God,  who  hears  me,  knows  how  I  long  to  see  thee,  oh  my 
world,  oh  my  soul !  I  trust  in  His  mercy,  which  will  grant 
me  to  see  thee  soon,  oh  all  my  hope  !  As  for  the  army,  thou 
shalt  decide  as  thou  wilt.  For  myself,  I  am  well,  thanks, 
doubtless,  to  thy  prayers  ;  all  here  are  well.  When  God  shall 
permit  me  to  see  thee  again,  I  will  tell  thee  all,  oh  all  m\'  world! 
thou  shalt  know  my  life,  my  occupations  ;  but  do  not  delay, 
cf)me, — yet  do  not  hurry  over  much,  j'ou  must  be  weary. 
What  shall  I  do  to  reward  you  for  everything,  and  above  all 


32  PETER  THE  GREAT 

others?  No  other  would  have  done  what  thou  hast  done; 
and  thou  hast  spent  so  much  pains  before  thou  couldst 
succeed.^  SoPlilA.' 

This  letter,  though  not  precise])-  modelled  on  the  style  of 
Mile.  Scudcri's  heroines,  is  none  the  less  conclusive.  If  La 
Neuville  is  to  be  believed,  Sophia  would  have  made  no 
difficulty  about  bestowing  the  reward  of  which  she  held  her 
hero  worthy.  But  there  was  an  obstacle  to  this  expression  ot 
her  transports  of  ingratitude, — an  obstacle  called  the  Princess 
Galitzin  ;  and,  unluckily,  the  hero  refused  to  do  what  was 
necessary  to  Ljet  rid  of  it, — 'feeling  naturally  bound  to  her 
in  honour,  besides  that  he  had  received  a  great  dowry 
with  her,  and  that  his  children  by  her  were  far  dearer  to 
him  than  those  he  had  by  the  Princess  {the  Tsarevfia), 
whom  he  only  cared  for  on  account  of  her  fortune.'  Yet, 
the  chronicler  proceeds,  'Women  are  ingenious,  she  (Sophia) 
contrived  to  persuade  him  (Galitzin)  to  induce  his  wife  to 
become  a  nun,  which  done,  according  to  Muscovite  law,  any 
husband,  on  the  excuse  of  the  ph)'sical  impossibility  of  his 
remaining  in  celibacy,  could  obtain  permission  to  marry 
again.  The  good  lady  having  freely  consented,  the  Princess 
counted  fully  on  the  success  of  her  plans.' ^ 

She  was  reckoning  without  another  barrier,  which  rose 
suddenly  between  her  and  what  had  looked  like  the 
approaching  realisation  of  her  dearest  hopes. 

IV 

As  may  well  be  imagined,  the  son  of  Nathalia  Naryshkin 
played  a  merely  passive  part  amidst  the  terrible  convul- 
sions which  more  than  once  shook  the  heavy  diadem  of 
Ivan  the  Terrible  on  his  young  brow,  and  filled  his  eyes 
with  bloody  visions.  Flattering  legends  have  indeed 
pictured  him,  as  startling  the  world,  by  a  courage  beyond 
his  years,  braving  assassins,  and  driving  them  back  under 
the  fire  and  majesty  of  his  glance.  At  the  same  time  his 
opening  genius,  no  less  precocious,  threw  the  exploits  of 
Pic  de  la  Mirandola  quite  into  the  shade.  He  is  described, 
at  three  years  old,  as  commanding  a  regiment,  and  prcscnt- 

'   Published  by  Oustrialof,  vol.  i.  p.  3S3. 

2  Dcsixitch  from   the  French  Afjent,   La  Vic,  dated  Nov.    10,   1718,  quoting 
Peter's  own  words,  in  contirniation  of  iliese  details  (Foreign  Oftice,  I'aris). 


THE  TSAREVNA  SOPHIA  33 

ing  reports  to  his  father.  At  eleven,  under  the  tuition 
of  a  Scotchman,  Menesius,  he  has  sounded  all  the  mysteries 
of  military  art,  and  has  adopted  personal  and  generally 
innovating  views,  concerning  several.  I  value  legends,  but 
1  do  not  shrink  from  the  necessity  of  contradicting  them 
when  they  seem  historically  incorrect.  In  this  matter  they 
are  completely  so.  Physically,  and  intellectually,  the  great 
man's  development  would,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  appear 
to  have  been  somewhat  slow.  The  colossus  had  some 
trouble  in  getting  on  its  legs :  at  three  years  old,  he  had  not 
parted  from  his  wet  nurse  ;  at  eleven  he  could  neither  read 
nor  write.  The  baby  strategian  and  his  regiment  {Pietrof- 
Polk),  on  the  subject  of  which  another,  and  in  most  respects 
well-informed,  historian,  in  what  is  otherwise  a  curious 
study,  complacently  dwells,  are  a  pure  and  simple  fiction.^ 
I  go  further  :  never,  even  at  a  more  advanced  age,  does  Peter 
give  signs  of  great  natural  courage.  He  is  far  too  nervous, 
too  easily  excited  ;  his  first  appearances  on  the  stage  which 
was  to  ring  with  the  sound  of  his  exploits,  had  nothing 
heroic  about  them.  Courage,  like  wisdom,  came  to  him 
late,  and  both  were  the  result  of  one  and  the  same  effort  of  a 
will  strengthened  by  repeated  trials.  The  terrible  experi- 
ences, the  anguish,  the  terrors,  which  assailed  his  youth,  left 
an  indelible  mark  on  his  character  and  temperament ; — an 
evident  proneness  to  the  easy  disturbance  of  the  physical 
and  moral  faculties,  by  any  violent  shock, — an  instinctive 
recoil  of  his  whole  being,  in  face  of  danger, — an  inclination  to 
bewilderment,  and  loss  of  self-control.  His  will  takes  the 
upper  hand  at  last,  and  nature,  once  conquered,  is  all  the 
better  servant ;  but  there  the  nature  is,  always,  and  un- 
changing. Hence,  Peter  will  all  his  life  be  a  timid  man,  and 
for  that  very  reason,  a  violent  one  as  well, — with  a  violence 
not  invariably  conscious,  and  frequently  calculated,  like  that 
of  Napoleon,  but  absolutely  unreflecting,  breaking  away, 
momentarily,  from  the  control  of  his  reason  and  his  will. 
This  defect,  to  which  I  have  already  referred,  this  brand  of 
the  cripple,  he  will  carry  with  him  all  his  life,  graven  in  his 
flesh; — the  fierce  expression  of  his  harsh  imperious  features 
twisted  by  a  sudden  convulsion.  It  has  been  said  that  an 
attempt  to  poison  him  thus  left  its  mark  :  whether  the  poison 
were  physical   or  moral  matters  little,  its  effect  is  the  im- 

'  Zabiclin,  The  Childhood  of  Peter  the  6'r^a/ (Moscow,  1S72). 


34  PETER  THE  GREAT 

portant  matter.  The  venom  instilled  into  the  poor  child's 
veins,  when  the  Strcitsj  drew  his  little  feet  through  his 
uncle's  blood,  seems  to  me  the  most  probable  of  the  two. 

He  was  frightened,  as  any  child  in  his  position  would 
have  been  frightened  ;  he  hid  himself,  no  doubt,  in  his 
mother's  skirts,  and  once  more,  without  a  shadow  of  regret,  he 
left  the  dreary  palace,  peopled  with  horrH:)le  nightmares. 
For  Sophia's  triumph  condemned  him  to  fresh  exile — both 
him  and  his, — put  him  outside  the  law,  at  least,  and,  happily 
for  him,  outside  the  common  rule.  Exile,  for  this  ten-year- 
old  Sovereign  who  was  to  grow  up  such  an  extraordinarily 
turbulent  man,  meant  room  to  stretch  his  limbs,  air  to 
breathe,  health  for  body  and  mind  ;  exile  here  stands  for 
freedom. 

He  makes  the  most  of  it.  He  does,  indeed,  return  to  the 
Kreml,  on  days  of  high  ceremony,  to  take  his  seat  on  the 
twin-throne,  specially  ordered  in  Holland — still  to  be  seen  in 
the  Moscow  Museum — but  these  are  but  transitory  appear- 
ances. The  rest  of  the  time  is  spent  at  Preobrajensko'i'c, 
free  from  all  the  servitude  and  constraint  of  etiquette  and 
sovereignty,  and  nothing  could  suit  him  better.  It  must  not 
be  forgotten  that  he  is  connected,  on  the  maternal  side,  with 
a  hotbed  of  relative  independence.  When  Nathalie  first 
arrived  at  the  Kreml,  her  half  Scotch  habits  caused  a 
scandal.  Did  she  not  even  dare  to  lift  a  corner  of  the 
curtain  that  screened  her  carriage  window  ?  On  his  mother's 
side,  too,  he  is  linked  to  a  centre  of  European  culture,  but 
fate  has  willed  his  separation  from  the  Greco-Latin-Polish 
School,  the  influence  of  which  has  hitherto  prevailed  in 
Russia.  The  representatives  of  this  school,  led  by  Mied- 
viedief,  all  belong  to  Sophia's  party.  One  of  his  tutors, 
Zotof,  who  also  belonged  to  it,  was  forced  to  flee,  and  never 
was  rejilaccd.  Left  to  himself,  the  child  follows  his  own 
fancy,  leaning  instinctively  to  foreigners.  Thus  he  learns 
many  things,  but  hardly  anything  of  military  matters.  He 
will  never  be  a  great  soldier,  his  mind  is  too  practical,  I 
would  even  say  too  boiiJ\<^cois.  He  is  described,  at  an  early 
age,  as  having  laid  the  Oroiijcnnaia palata,  the  court  arsenal, 
under  contribution.  ]iut  this  seventeenth  century  Mus- 
covite arsenal  is  only  military  in  name.  It  really  is  a  sort 
of  Eastern  bazaar  ;  Peter  sends  there  for  watches,  which  he 
amuses  himself  by  taking  to  pieces,  and  horticultural  imple- 


THE  TSAREVNA  SOPHIA  35 

mcnts,  the  use  of  which  he  has  explained  to  him.  People 
have  chosen  to  exaggerate  the  extent  of  his  boyish  curiosity.^ 
Let  us  take  any  child — a  fairly  gifted  one,  of  course — with  a 
bright  intelligence,  let  us  suppose  him  absolutely  removed 
from  the  ordinary  course  of  systematic  education,  and  at  the 
same  time  perfectly  free  to  satisfy  the  needs  of  his  awaken- 
ing intelligence,  and  his  naturally  active  imagination.  His 
instinctive  desire  for  knowledge  will  evidently  turn  in  a  great 
variety  of  directions.  Peter  is  an  avroSiSaKro^;,  as  a  diplomat 
in  his  service,  writing  to  Leibnitz,  later  expressed  it.- 

It  does  not  in  the  least  follow  that  he  was  a  precocious 
student.  His  exercise-books  are  still  in  existence  ;  at  the 
age  of  sixteen,  his  writing  was  bad,  his  orthography  lament- 
able, and  he  had  not  progressed  beyond  the  two  first  rules 
in  arithmetic.  His  tutor,  the  Dutchman,  Franz  Timmer- 
mann,  had  some  trouble,  himself,  in  working  out  a  sum  in 
multiplication  by  four  figures.  It  should  be  added  that  in 
his  lessons,  arithmetical  problems  alternated  with  theorems 
of  descriptive  geometry.^ 

We  who  have  a  regular  process  of  scholastic  training,  in- 
variably and  systematically  graduated,  shrink  from  seeing 
an  order  of  intellectual  progress  to  which  we  are  accustomed, 
and  which  may  after  all  be  merely  arbitrary,  thus  inverted. 
But  such  inversions  are  frequent,  in  less  precise  and  rule- 
bound  intellectual  spheres  than  ours. 

It  is  a  mere  chance,  too,  which  interested  Peter,  at  this 
early  age,  in  a  class  of  studies  which  have  but  little  charm 
for  most  very  young  minds.  In  1686  his  attention  was 
accidentally  drawn  in  conversation  to  a  wonderful  instru- 
ment brought  back  by  Prince  James  Dolgorouki,  from  a 
journey  abroad.  With  this  instrument,  he  heard,  distances 
might  be  measured  without  moving  a  step.  Nothing  of  the 
sort  had  ever  yet  been  seen  in  the  Oroujemiaia  palata.  And 
forthwith  the  astrolabe  was  sent  for.  Alas  !  Dolgorouki 
came  back  empty-handed,  the  instrument  had  disappeared 
from  his  house — stolen,  no  doubt.     Luckily,  the  Prince  was 

^  Nastrof,  The  Early  Education  of  Peter  I.  {Russian  Archives,  1875),  vol.  ii. 
p.  470.  Comp.  Pogodin,  Early  Years  of  Peter  the  Great  (Moscow,  1S75), 
p.  17,  etc. 

-  Baron  Urlnch,  i6th  Nov.  1707,  in  Guerrier's  Leibnitz  in  seinen  Beziehungen 
zu  A'// .f5/rt«(f  (Leipzig,  1S73),  vol.  ii.  p.  71. 

^  Oustrialof,  vol.  ii.  p.  439,  Cabinet  of  Peter  I.  {Imperial  Archives),  section  i. 
Look  38. 


36  PETER  THE  GREAT 

upon  the  p.-)int  of  startin^r  once  more  for  the  countries  where 
such  wonders  grew.  Sophia  and  Galitzin  were  sending 
him  to  Louis  XIV.,  to  ask  his  help  ai^ainst  the  Turks.  The 
Most  Christian  Kini^  gave  the  Ambassador  the  reception 
he  might  have  expected,  but  the  astrolabe  was  purchased. 
When  it  reached  Peter's  hands,  he  was  sorely  puzzled,  not 
knowing  how  to  use  it.  Somebody  mentioned  Timmer- 
mann,  and  the  Dutchman,  who  had  been  building  houses 
in  the  German  quarter,  became  mathematical  tutor  at  Prco- 
brajcnskoTe. 

Peter  had  neither  time  nor  wish — nor,  with  such  a  master, 
had  he  the  means — to  make  great  progress  in  this  branch  of 
knowledge.  In  his  case,  the  astrolabe  was  evidently,  and 
simply,  the  accidental  manifestation  of  that  instinct  of  touch- 
ing everything,  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  childish  natures. 
Doubtless,  the  excessive  prominence,  in  his  character,  of  this 
itching  curiosity,  is  in  many  ways  unusual,  and  denotes  not 
only  a  particularly  formed  and  serious-minded  nature  in  the 
child  himself,  but  also  the  existence  of  very  special  external 
circumstances  which  influenced  his  mind.  His  ultimate 
destiny  made  it  necessary  that,  in  the  surroundings  amongst 
which  he  was  placed,  the  things  which  should  most  power- 
fully attract  his  intelligence,  ever  on  the  alert  for  new  sensa- 
tions— the  most  attractive,  the  most  rz/r/'^z/i' things — should 
also  be  the  most  useful  and  instructive  points  in  the  new 
world,  full  of  wonders,  with  which  the  circle  of  his  own 
existence  was  beginning  to  find  contact. 

For,  it  is  clearly  improbable — all  legends  notwithstanding 
— that  at  ten  years  old,  or  even  at  sixteen,  the  future  reformer 
should  have  realised  the  advantage  Russia  would  find,  one 
day,  in  being  governed  by  a  Prince  who  could  \)\y  fourteen 
different  trades.  Fourteen  is  the  number  hallowed  by  tra- 
dition ;  but  Peter  never  learnt  fourteen  trades.  He  did 
study  and  practise  a  few,  such  as  turning  and  dentistry,  with- 
out apparent  profit  to  any  one  at  all.  ]5y  this  dispersal  of 
his  attention,  in  spite  of  the  breadth  of  an  eminently  compre- 
hensive intelligence,  he  ran  the  risk  of  supcrficialit)' — and  he 
did  not  escape  it.  In  later  years,  following  the  example  of 
his  peers,  and  converting  his  natural  inclinations  into  reasoned 
aptitudes,  he  will  perceive  that  to  say  to  his  subjects  (a  lazy, 
ignorant,  and  awkward-handed  nation),  '  Do  this  or  that,  be- 
stir yourselves,  learn  ! '    has   less  effect  on   them,  than   the 


THE  TSAREVNA  SOPHIA  37 

powerful  example  of  his  own  action.  On  principle,  therefore, 
but  also  and  always  by  taste,  by  instinct,  by  temperament, 
and  in  obedience  to  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere  around 
him,  he  will  go  on  bestirring  himself,  gathering  up  here  and 
there,  pell-mell,  and  at  random,  every  sort  of  knowledge,  every 
kind  of  facility,  working  everywhere,  and  on  every  under- 
taking, with  his  own  hands.  And  these  same  influences, 
again,  drive  him,  early  in  life,  into  the  only  line  in  which  he 
succeeds  in  becoming  a  good  practical,  if  not  a  master-hand, 
at  the  same  time  providing  him  with  an  inexhaustible  source 
of  pleasure,  if  not  of  positive  and  enduring  benefit,  to  himself, 
and  to  his  country. 

Every  one  knows  the  story, — amplified  and  adorned,  of 
course,  by  the  tellers, — of  the  old  English  boat,  found  in  the 
village  of  Isma'ilof,  in  a  store  of  cast-off  possessions,  once 
belonging  to  the  great- uncle  of  the  young  hero,  Nikita 
Ivanovitch  Romanof  The  legend,  ingenious  to  the  last, 
will  have  it  that  Peter,  as  a  child,  had  such  a  horror  of 
water,  that  he  grew  pale  and  trembled  at  the  sight  of  a 
brook.  This  may,  perhaps,  have  been  the  mere  sj'mbolic 
expression  of  the  natural  difficulty  felt  by  a  landsman,  an 
inhabitant  of  the  hugest  continent  in  the  world,  about 
entering  into  intimacy  with  that  distant,  invisible,  unknown, 
well-nigh  unattainable,  element.  Peter  will  give  Russia  a 
fleet  before  he  gives  her  a  sea.  The  whole  character  of  his 
life-work — precipitate,  abnormal, paradoxical — is  seen  in  this 
one  trait.  When  the  old  half-rotten  wooden  skiff,  the 
Isma'ilof  boat,  attracted  the  child's  attention,  it  overcame 
his  instinctive  repugnance,  and  confirmed  him  in  his  vocation 
as  a  sailor. 

No  sufficient  attempt  has  been  made  to  explain  the 
presence  of  this  boat,  in  a  village  close  to  Moscow,  in  the 
very  centre  of  terra  firvia.  When,  some  time  later,  Peter 
established  a  shipbuilding  yard  some  hundreds  of  versts 
away,  on  the  lake  of  Pereiaslavl,  he  merely  followed  a  course 
which  had  been  already  traced  out,  before  him.  That 
strange  thing,  a  navy  without  a  sea,  was  his  creation,  but  it 
was  not  his  invention.  Properly  speaking,  indeed,  he  never 
invented  anything;  this  will  be  seen,  as  the  series  of  his 
manifold  realisations  is  unrolled.  Attempts  had  been  made 
in  this  direction,  even  under  the  reign  of  Tsar  Alexis  ;  a 
yacht,  TJic  Eagle,  having  been  built  at  Diedinof,  on  the  banks 


38  PETER  THE  GREAT 

of  the  Oka,  with  the  help  of  foreign  carpenters,  brouGjht  in 
for  the  purpose.  Stru)\s  notices  this  yacht  fully  in  his 
Travels}  The  idea  was  floating  in  the  air,  confused  as  yet, 
but  clearly  directed  towards  the  desired  goal. 

The  Ismailof  boat,  like  the  astrolabe,  at  first  appeared  a 
mysterious  object  in  I'eter's  eyes.  The  peasants,  in  old 
days,  had  seen  it  sailing  against  the  wind, — wonderful  indeed  ! 
It  was  soon  launched  on  a  neighbouring  pond.  But  how  to 
sail  it?  Timmermann  was  completely  at  a  loss.  Luckily 
the  artisans.  Dutchmen  too,  who  had  worked  at  Dicdinof, 
had  not  all  disappeared.  A  few  were  living  in  the  Faubourg. 
Thus,  Peter  had  two  more  teachers,  Karschten-lkandt  and 
Kort,  carpenters  both.  They  advised  the  removal  of  the 
boat  to  Pcreiaslavl,  where  there  was  a  huge  sheet  of  water. 
Peter  took  their  advice,  and  set  himself  eagerly  to  work 
under  their  teaching ;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact,  his  principal 
occupation  at  that  moment  was  that  of  playing  truant.  Pie 
did  indeed  learn  some  useful  things,  but  chiefly  he  acquired 
habits,  and  inclinations, — some  of  them  deplorable.  He 
gained  health,  too,  and  vigour,  iron  muscles,  a  physical 
temperament  of  extraordinary  toughness, — save  for,  and  in 
spite  of,  his  nervous  attacks,  the  outcome  of  his  hereditary 
stain, — and  a  moral  organisation,  of  marvellous  suppleness, 
robust,  enterprising,  except  in  those  occasional  moments  of 
weakness. 

He  made  himself  friends,  too, — quite  a  little  tribe,  collected 
at  random,  in  his  large  domestic  circle,  in  the  pronn"scuity  of 
his  vagrant  existence — grooms  from  the  paternal  stables 
{koniouJiy)  who  rode  the  little  horses  of  the  country  with 
him,  barebacked, — scamps  picked  up  in  the  streets.  He 
played  soldiers  with  them,  of  course,  and,  naturally,  he  was 
in  command.  Behold  him  then,  at  the  head  of  a  regiment! 
Out  of  this  childish  play  rose  that  mighty  creation,  the 
Russian  army.  Yes,  this  double  point  of  departure — the 
pseudo-naval  games  on  the  lake  of  Perefaslavl,  and  the 
pseudo-military  games  on  the  Preobrajenskoic'  drill-ground 
— led  to  the  double  goal, — the  Conquest  of  the  Baltic,  and 
the  Battle  of  Poltava. 

But  to  realise  all  this,  to  fill  up  the  space  thus  indicated, 
more  was  necessary  than  the  passage  of  a  unique  personality, 
however  exceptional,  from  childhood  to  ripe  age ;  more  than 

'   .Amslcrdam,  1 746. 


THE  TSAREVNA  SOPHIA  39 

the  humanly  possible  development  of  an  individual  genius  ; 
there  must  have  been  a  concourse  of  immense  collective 
forces — prepared  beforehand,  but  motionlessly  awaiting  the 
favourable  hour,  the  man  who  should  know  how  to  use  them 
— linked  to  the  natural  effort.  The  hour  and  the  man  once 
arrived,  these  were  to  be  suddenly  revealed,  to  use  the 
individual  as  much  as  he  used  them,  to  urge  him  onward, 
quite  as  much  as  he  was  to  stimulate  their  action.  The 
man  himself  was  but  the  product  of  this  latent  energy,  and 
thus  it  is  that,  at  the  proper  moment,  he  appears,  rising  out 
of,  and  with,  and  by  it. 

Not  only  are  the  foundations  of  a  fleet  and  an  army  laid, 
amidst  the  boyish  undertakings,  ar.d  the  riotous  companion- 
ships of  the  fiery  youth.  A  whole  new  society  is  takir.g 
shape.  All  the  old  aristocracy,  all  the  superannuated  hier- 
archy of  Moscow,  will  soon  be  crushed  beneath  the  feet  of 
the  bold  fellows,  sprung  from  the  stable  and  the  kitchen, 
whom  he  will  make  Dukes  and  Princes,  Ministers  and 
Marshals.  And  in  this  again,  he  will  only  take  up  the 
broken  thread  of  national  tradition.  He  will  improvise 
nothing,  he  will  merely  imitate  his  ancestors  of  the  pre- 
Mongol  epoch,  chiefs  of  a  dronjina  (fighting  band)  who 
fought  beside  their  drflu/iy,  drank  with  them,  when  the 
work  was  done,  and  refused  to  turn  Mohammedan  because 
'drinking  is  the  Russian's  joy.' 

Peter  will  always  be  a  convivial  comrade,  and  a  heavy 
drinker  ;  always,  too,  he  wil^  keep  the  trace,  an  unpleasant 
one  in  some  particulars,  of  his  taste  for  the  comradeship  of 
the  lowest  of  the  population  ;  and  he  will  leave  something 
of  it  in  his  work,  and  in  the  national  life  he  fashioned. 
The  popular  habits  of  the  period  preceding  his  accession 
have  since  found  eager  apologists.  Such  praise  should 
surely  be  extended  to  the  private  personality  of  the  great 
reformer.  This  would  be  a  hazardous  undertaking.  Un- 
cleanly habits,  coarse  manners,  degrading  vices,  the  musty 
smell  of  the  wine-shop,  a  general  atmosphere  of  c}'nicism, 
all  that  is  most  shocking  in  his  character,  Peter  picked  up 
in  the  street,  in  the  common  life  of  his  country,  before  the 
Reforms.  He  did  wrong  to  keep  these  tastes,  he  did  still 
more  wrong  in  desiring  that  his  subjects  should  keep  them. 


40  PKTER  THE  GREAT 


The  Tsarina  Nathalia  docs  not  appear  to  have  realised, 
until  very  late,  the  dangers  her  son  ran  among  such  com- 
panions. She  herself  had  others,  very  little  better  chosen, 
who  absorbed  her. 

The  origin  of  the  'pleasure'  regiments  {potieshnyie)  goes 
back,  according  to  the  most  reliable  information,  to  the  j-ear 
1682;  which  fact  suffices  to  deprive  them,  at  th  2  outset,  of 
the  serious  character  some  people  have  attributed  to  them. 
Peter  was  then  ten  years  old.^  But  in  1687,  the  young 
Tsar's  military  games  began  to  take  on  proportions  which 
attracted  general  attention.  A  fortress  was  built  at  Preobra- 
jenskoi'e,  on  the  banks  of  the  laouza,  whence  cannon  was 
fired.  The  next  year,  the  English  skiff  was  discovered,  and 
from  that  time  forward,  Peter,  drawn  to  PereTaslavl  by  the 
dual  attraction  of  fire  and  water,  escaped  all  domestic 
control.  His  life,  it  is  reported,  was  frequently  imperilled 
in  these  sports,  during  which  accidents  frequently  occurred. 
To  put  a  stop  to  them,  Nathalia  hit  upon  a  plan  which 
seemed  to  her  a  certain  one.  '  Marry  and  change,'  says  a 
Russian  proverb.  She  looked  about  for  a  wife  for  her  son. 
He  let  her  have  her  way.  Unlike  his  future  adversary,  the 
austere  Charles  Xli.,  Peter  was  by  no  means  indifferent  to, 
nor  scornful  of,  the  fair  sex.  On  the  27th  of  January  1689, 
he  led  Eudoxia  Lapouhin,  the  daughter  of  a  prominent 
Boyard,  to  the  altar.  But  he  set  the  proverb  at  nought. 
Three  months  later,  the  couple  had  parted.  He  was  tacking 
about  on  the  lake  of  Pereiaslavl,  she,  serving  the  apprentice- 
ship of  a  widowhood  which  was  to  last  all  her  life.  Naviga- 
tion has  become  more  than  a  taste  with  the  young  Tsar,  it 
is  a  jealous  and  exclusive  passion.  Some  obscure  atavism 
inherited  from  the  ancient  Varegians  stirs  his  soul.  He  has 
never  seen  the  sea,— he  never  ceases  dreaming  of  it, — he  will 
never  know  rest,  till  he  has  reached  it.  And  this  again  is 
according  to  tradition.  For  two  centuries,  every  war  under- 
taken by  his  predecessors  has  had  this  object, — to  reach  the 
sea  on  the  North-west,  by  driving  back  Poland  or  Sweden, 
or  on  the  South-east,  by  driving  back  Turkey  Still,  even  for 
this,  he  will  not  part  with  his  koiiio/i/iy.      Already  he  plans 

*  See  Oiistrialof,  vol.  ii.  p.  329  ;  ccjiiiji.  Memoirs  of  Malvic'ief  (Tmunanski 
edition),  vol.  i.  pp.  194-196. 


THE  TSAREVNA  SOPHIA  41 

strategical  combinations,  for  using  and  combining  the  naval 
and  land  forces  at  his  disposal  ;  and  those  same  forces  have 
grown  with  the  youth,  who  has  already  reached  a  giant's 
stature.  The  toy  has  almost  reached  the  proportions  of  a 
weapon.  In  September  1688,  the  young  Tsar  requisitions 
all  the  drums  and  fifes  of  a  crack  Strcltsy  regiment  for  his 
war  game.  In  November,  greatly  to  the  displeasure  of 
Prince  Vassili  Galitzin,  he  takes  two-thirds  of  the  effective 
strength  of  another  regiment,  and  draws  the  teams  for  his 
'pleasure'  artillery  from  the  depot  of  the  komouslicnny'i 
prikaz  (stable  department).  There  is  a  regular  recruiting 
station  at  Preobrajenskotc,  and  the  grooms  and  cook  boys 
are  not  the  only  recruits  whose  names  appear  on  the  lists. 
Those  of  1688  contain  the  names  of  some  of  the  greatest 
Muscovite  families,  such  as  Boutourlin  and  Galitzin. 

The  presence  of  these  aristocrats  is  in  itself  an  absurdity, 
one  of  those  ironical  surprises  with  which  history  abounds. 
Peter,  the  unconscious  artisan,  as  yet,  of  a  great  political  and 
social  renovation,  who  knows  not  whither  he  goes,  save  that 
he  follows  his  own  pleasure,  has  become  the  unconscious 
instrument  of  a  party  pursuing  a  very  different  aim.  His 
work  is  confiscated,  momentarily,  for  the  benefit  of  tend- 
encies diametrically  opposed  to  it.  These  new  comers,  who 
will  shortly  incite  the  future  reformer  to  claim  his  stolen 
rights,  will  one  day  help  to  swell  the  army  of  the  most 
resolute  opponents  of  reform.  But  for  the  moment  there  is 
no  question  of  reform — far  from  it.  The  means  by  which  the 
Miloslavski,  and,  following  them,  Sophia,  have,  ensured  or 
obtained  their  power, — the  abolition  of  the  Miestnitchestvo, 
the  appeal  to  popular  insurrection, —  have  bound  their  cause 
up  with  that  of  the  lower  classes.  The  great  nobility,  that 
section,  at  least,  which  remains  most  opposed  to  progress, — 
wounded  in  its  prerogatives  and  its  ancient  customs — has  a 
natural  tendency  to  rally,  first  round  Matvicief  and  Nathalia, 
and  then  round  Peter.  So  that  the  weapon,  which  amuses 
Peter,  is,  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  now  help  him  to  forge  the 
blade,  and  sharpen  its  edge,  destined  to  hasten  the  retalia- 
tion of  conservative  and  anti-European  ideas,  on  the  most 
European-minded  man  Moscow  has  ever  seen.  '  Down  with 
Vassili  Galitzin'  will  be  their  war-cry.  Preobrajenskoie 
has  simply  become  a  natural  rallying  point  for  malcontents 
of  every  kind,  and  among  these,  the  reactionaries,  being  the 


42  PETER  Tlii:  GREAT 

most  important,  take  the  forcmi^st  place.  looter,  himself 
wouiuieti,  c)utra;:jei.l,  and  stripped,  I")y  the  transitory  VLgiuic, 
the  close  of  which  they  so  impatiently  await,  is  their  chosen 
leader,  the  future  avenger,  so  they  fain  would  hope,  of  the 
common  injury. 

But  of  this  he  recks  not.  He  only  cares  for  amusing 
himself.  He  entertains  himself,  at  PercTaslavl,  sailing  boats 
whose  canvas  swells  with  no  reforming  breeze.  Under  cover 
of  his  name,  and  with  his  concurrence,  a  struggle  is  brewing 
between  the  silent  Kreml  and  the  noisy  camp  where  he 
spends  his  j-outhful  ardour.  But  in  this  game,  in  which  his 
fortune  and  that  of  Russia  are  at  stake,  the  only  prize  he 
sees  and  covets,  is  larger  scope  for  his  schoolboy  fancies. 
Years  must  go  by  yet,  before  he  finds  his  true  path.  Till 
that  time  comes,  careless  of  where  the  road  may  lie,  he  will 
obetlicntly  follow  his  chance  guides.  On  the  day  chosen  by 
them,  he  will  march  to  the  assault  of  power,  and  will  leave 
them  the  chief  benefits  of  his  victory. 

Thus,  he  steps  backwards  into  history,  indifferent  alike  to 
his  destiny  and  to  his  glory. 

In  Jul)',  1689,  the  storm  breaks. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE   MONASTERY   OF   THE   TROITSA 

I.  Government  under  the  Rej^ency — Its  merits — Causes  of  weakness — Disap- 
pointments and  bitterness — Diversion  to  external  matters — Tlie  Crimean 
campaigns — Disasters — Galitzin's  return — Popular  indignation — Peter's 
party  lakes  advanta'^e  of  it — Tfie  Kreml  and  the  Preobrajenskoic  camp 
— Sopliia  faces  the  storm — The  conflict. 
II.  The  night  of  the  7th  of  August — Attack  or  stratagem? — Peter's  flight — The 
convent  of  the  Troitsa — The  Archimandrite  \'incent — Boris  Galitzin — 
The  struggle  is  organised. 
III.  Parleys  and  mano:'uvres — Which  way  will  the  army  go? — Sophia's  courage 
— Vassili  Galitzin's  weakness — Defection — The  Regent  submits — He 
comes  to  the  Troitsa — Exile — Question  and  torture — Sophia  acknowledges 
herself  beaten — Her  cloister — The  new  r<igi)ne — Peter's  comrades  in 
power — The  reaction — the  Future. 

I 

Sophia's  regency,  justified,  at  all  events,  as  it  was,  by  Peter's 
youth,  if  not  its  natural  outcome,  might,  in  1689,  have  still 
hoped  to  endure,  more  or  less  legitimately,  for  several  years. 
Peter  was  barely  eighteen  years  old,  and  no  Russian  law — 
lil<c  that  of  Charles  V.  in  France — has  advanced  the  hour  of 
poh'ticai  maturity  in  the  case  of  sovereigns.  Impatient 
ambition  may  indeed  endeavour  to  hurry  the  march  of  time. 
But  not  Peter's  own  ambition  ;  he  still  cares  so  little  about 
power,  that,  for  many  a  day  yet,  the  accomplishment  of  the 
great  event  will  bring  no  change  in  his  occupations. 

The  government  of  Sophia  and  of  iier  co-Regent,  inaugu- 
rating a  gvnecocracy  which,  for  almost  a  century — from  the 
tla}'s  of  Catherine  I.  to  those  of  Catherine  IT. — was  to  become 
the  general  rule  in  Russia,  does  not  strike  me  as  having 
deserved  either  the  criticisms,  or  the  praises, — all  of  them 
equally  exaggerated, — which  have  been  showered  upon  it. 
Neither  Voltaire,  who  follows  La  Neuville  in  describing  the 
Tsarevna    as    a    second    Lucrezia    Borgia,    nor    Karamzin, 

following    Leveque  and   Coxe,  who  calls   her  '  one  of  the 

43 


44  PETER  THE  GREAT 

greatest  women  tlie  world  has  ever  secn,'^  has,  in  my 
opinion,  done  her  justice.  Ainong  the  old  Russian  historians, 
Miiller  in  his  criticisms  of  Voltaire's  views,^  Boltin  in  iiis 
notes  of  the  History  of  Leclerc,^  and  especially  Emin*  with 
Aristof,^  among  the  moderns,  have  endeavoured, not  altogether 
successfully,  to  reconcile  these  contradictory  exaggerations. 

For  my  part,  the  government  seems  to  mc  to  have  had  some- 
thing exceedingly  H)'7,antine  about  it.  Xo  Bj-zantinc  quality 
is  lacking — Court  intrigues,  party  struggles,  Pretorian  revolts, 
liturgical  quarrels  as  to  how  the  fingers  should  be  crossed 
in  prayer,  how  many  times  the  word  hallelujah  should  be 
repeated,  and  whether,  perchance,  the  Trinity  should  not 
consist  of  four  Persons,  with  a  separate  throne  for  the 
Saviour  of  the  world.  Yet,  other  elements  appear,  which 
raise  it  to  a  higher  level.  There  is  a  continuation  of  that 
economic  springtime,  so  to  speak,  already  inaugurated  under 
Alexis;  a  bcgiiming  too, of  an  intellectual  spring-tide.  While 
Galitzin  was  building  houses  in  Moscow,  Sophia  was  writing 
plays.  She  had  them  acted  at  the  Kreml  ;  she  even,  so  some 
])eople  say,  acted  in  them  herself.  The  policy  of  the  regency, 
internal  and  external,  lacked  neither  energy  nor  skill.  It 
made  a  bold  struggle  against  the  abettors  of  religious  quarrels, 
who  had  taken  the  place  of  the  rioters  of  former  days,  and 
who  came  to  the  Palace,  even  as  the  Strcltsy  had  once  come, 
to  seek  the  Patriarch,  and  wrangle  with  him.  The  chief  of 
the  raskolniks,  Nikita,  was  put  to  death.  It  defended  order 
with  all  its  might,  and.  when  the  vSZ/rZ/jri' claimed  the  right  to 
disturb  it,  did  not  hesitate  to  punish  its  former  allies.  It 
appealed  from  the  rebellious  soldiery,  to  the  nation  at  large. 
VVhen  the  Kreml  was  threatened,  it  removed  the  throne  into 
the  protecting  shadow  of  the  altar.  In  October  1682  Sophia 
and  Galitzin  took  refuge  in  the  convent  of  the  Troitsa. 

'  The  Trinity,'  standing  some  si.x  leagues  from  Moscow, — 
the  traditional  refuge  of  the  Ro\'al  house  in  hours  of  danger 
— still  retained  all  the  characteristics  of  the  great  Russian 
Obitiels :  little  fortified  towns  with  a  population  of  monks, 
novices,  and   serving   brothers,   numbering  their  thousands, 

^  Karamzin,  vol  vii.  p.  293.     Levcque,  Hist,  de  Russie  (Paris,  1799),  vol.  iv. 
pp.  204-234. 

^  Eiiuies,  1 7  50- 1 764. 
»  St.  Petersburg',  1788. 

*  l.iDet  of  the  Ktissian  Sovcreis^n^  (9^^.  PctcrsHu-!T.  1767-69). 

*  Rebellions  in  Moscow  Jitrinq;  the  Kei^n  of  Sophia  (Warsaw,  1S71). 


THE  MONASTERY  OF  THE  TROITSA  45 

churches  by  the  dozen,  not  to  mention  shops,  workshops,  and 
trades  of  various  kinds.  Boris  Godunof  once  souf^ht  sheher 
there  ;  and  to  this  day  the  traces  of  the  Polish  balls  which 
rained  im potently  on  the  ramparts  of  that  holy  spot  are 
shown  with  pride.  Thither,  in  his  turn,  and  shortly  too, 
Peter  was  to  come,  to  crave  help  and  protection. 

The  appeal  of  the  ad  interim  government  had  been  heard, 
and  had  procured  it  an  army.  Falling  into  an  ambush  at 
Vosdvijenskoi'e,  midway  between  Moscow  and  the  TroTtsa, 
Hovanski,nou'  the  hostile  chief  of  the  Strclts)\\oiX  his  head  ; 
his  son  shared  his  fate,  and  the  rebellion,  decapitated  with 
its  chiefs,  collapsed. 

Abroad, — in  the  field  of  diplomacy,  at  all  events — Galitzin 
proved  himself  a  faithful  and  fortunate  exponent  of  the 
traditional  policy  of  territorial  expansion,  which  had  gradu- 
ally set  the  frontiers  of  Muscovy  farther  and  farther  back, 
towards  the  South  and  West.  Taking  skilful  advantage  of 
the  difficulties  into  which,  in  spite  of  Sobieski's  victories, 
their  long  war  with  Turkey  had  thrown  the  Poles,  he  snatched 
Kief  out  of  their  hands.  In  June,  1685,  a  new  IMftropolitan, 
duly  installed  in  the  ancient  capital,  consented  to  receive 
his  investiture  from  the  patriarch  of  Moscow.  This  was  a 
decisive  step  on  the  road  which  was  to  lead  to  the  recovery 
of  the  territories  of  Little-Russia  and  to  the  partition  of  the 
Republic. 

But  these  successes  were  compromised,  unfortunately,  by 
the  fatal  consequences  of  causes  connected  with  the  very 
origin  of  the  Regent's  power.  When  Sophia  and  Galitzin 
put  down  the  partisans  of  disorder  and  anarchy,  they  turned 
their  hands  against  the  authors  of  their  own  prosperity. 
Between  the  disappointment  thus  caused,  on  one  hand,  and 
the  bitterness  roused,  on  the  other,  their  policy  became  an 
aimless  struggle.  It  soon  grew  a  hopeless  one.  The 
very  next  year  they  were  at  their  wits'  end.  When  the 
Bo)'ards — ill-treated  and  deeply  discontented — seemed  in- 
clined to  raise  their  heads,  a  mob  was  brought  together  on 
the  Loubianka,  the  most  crowded  square  of  the  city.  An 
anonymous  document  had  been  found  there,  which  coun- 
selled the  people  to  hurry  in  their  thousands  to  the  Church 
of  Our  Lady  of  Kasan,  where,  behind  the  image  of  the 
Virgin,  another  paper  which  sliould  guide  their  course 
would  be  discovered.     Thither   the  crowd    repaired,  and   a 


46  PETER  THE  GREAT 

p;uniihlct,  speaking  evil  of  Sophia,  and  appealing  to  the 
people  to  rise  and  massacre  the  lioyards  who  supported  the 
Tsarevna,  was  duly  brought  to  light.  This  pamphlet,  a  mere 
farce,  was  the  work  of  Shaklovit}!,  a  new  counsellor  of 
Sophia's,  a  representative  of  ancient  Muscovy,  in  the  purest 
Byzantine  style — a  fierce  and  cunning  schemer.  The  Tsar- 
evna feigned  terror,  and  her  good  people  acclaimed  her,  and 
offered  to  rid  her  of  her  enemies.^ 

And  now,  even  abroad,  the  luck  began  to  turn.  The 
Regent,  having  promised  Poland  the  help  of  the  Muscovite 
troops  against  the  Turks,  in  exchange  for  Kief,  made  two 
expeditions  into  the  Crimea  ;  this  again  was  the  traditional 
course.  The  Crimean  Tartars  formed  a  barrier  between 
Moscow  and  Constantinople,  which  Russia  was  not  to  over- 
throw for  another  century.  But  there  was  nothing  of  the 
great  general  about  Galitzin  ;  in  each  campaign  he  left  an 
army,  vast  military  stores,  and  the  remnants  of  his  reputa- 
tion, on  the  steppes.  Starting  for  his  second  expedition,  he 
found,  before  his  palace  door,  a  coffin,  uMth  the  insulting 
legend,  'Try  to  be  more  fortunate!"^  Returning  to 
Moscow  in  June  1689,  a  wild  clamour,  yells,  and  threats  of 
death  saluted  him.  He  was  publicly  accused  of  corruption  ; 
barrels  of  French  louis  d'or  were  said  to  have  been  openly 
convej'ed  into  his  tent.  Meanwhile  the  Preobrajensko'id 
camp  was  daily  filling  with  new  recruits,  and  Sophia  saw 
the  ranks  of  her  partisans  melt  before  her  eyes.  Yet 
she  faced  the  storm  bravely  ;  her  ambition,  and  her  love, 
indeed,  were  at  their  very  height.  She  had  taken  advantage 
of  the  conclusion  of  peace  with  Poland  to  get  herself  pro- 
claimed saniodicrjitsa  (autocrat),  with  equal  rank  to  her 
brothers.  This  title  figured,  thenceforward,  on  all  official 
documents,  and  on  occasions  of  public  ceremony  the  Tsar- 
evna took  her  place  beside  her  brothers,  or  rather  beside  the 
elder  one,  for  Peter  hardly  ever  appeared.  She  caused  her 
portrait,  with  the  crown  of  Monomachus  on  her  head,  to  be 
engraved  in  Holland.  At  the  same  time,  and  notwithstand- 
ing that,  according  to  certain  witnesses,  she  had  given  the 
absent  Galitzin  an  obscure  rival,  in  the  person  of  Shak- 
lovityY,  ^  she  pursued  the  supreme  object  of  her  early  dreams 

1  Sliaklov'ilyi's  depositions,  see  OuslrLilof,  vol.  ii.  p.  39. 

'  Avril,   Voya:e  en  d  vers  F.ldts  if  Eurof'C  et  (V Aiic,  p.  315. 

8  Kouiakiii  Archiva  (.St.  IVtorsljurg,  1S90-1895),  vol.  i.  p.  55. 


THE  MONASTERY  OF  THE  TROITSA  47 

— her  marriage  with  the  Regent  and  a  common  throne — 
with  ever-increasing  ardour.  To  attain  this  end,  she  elabo- 
rated a  very  complicated  plan,  which  called  for  the  intcr- 
\ention  of  the  Pope  himself  Ivan  was  to  be  married,  his 
wife  to  be  provided  with  a  lover  so  as  to  ensure  the  birth  of 
children  ;  Peter,  thus  put  on  one  side,  would  be  got  rid  of 
somehow.  Then,  tempted  by  a  proposed  reunion,  to  be  dis- 
cussed and  negotiated,  at  any  rate,  between  the  Orthodox 
and  the  Roman  Church,  the  Pope  was  to  be  induced  to  pro- 
claim the  illegitimacy  of  Ivan's  children.  The  ground  thus 
cleared,  Sophia  and  Galitzin  would  only  have  to  cccupy  it. 
Meanwhile  the  Tsarevna  was  resolved  to  brazen  it  out. 
While  Shaklovityi,  relegated  by  the  Regent's  return  to  the 
subaltern  position  of  a  partisan  and  a  police  agent,  kept  his 
eye  on  those  few  of  Peter's  friends  who  dared  already  to 
cast  aside  the  mask,  she  defied  public  opinion,  by  decreeing 
a  distribution  of  rewards  to  the  companions  in  arms  of 
Galitzin,  whose  victory  she  still  persisted  in  proclaiming. 
Peter,  well  advised  by  those  about  him,  refused  his  sanction. 
She  did  without  it : — here  was  open  conflict!  Generals  and 
officers,  loaded  with  honours  and  with  pensions,  betook 
themselves  to  Preobrajenskoie  to  thank  the  Tsar.  He  re- 
fused to  see  them  : — here  was  public  rupture  ! 


II 

The  historic  night  of  the  7th  of  August  1689  closes  in  at 
last.  A  luminous  summer  night,  darkened,  unhappily,  by  the 
contradictions  of  legend  and  of  history.  This  much  seems 
tolerably  clear.  Peter  was  suddenly  roused  from  slumber, 
b\'  fugitives  from  the  Kreml,  who  came  to  warn  him  that 
the  Tsarevna  had  collected  an  armed  band  to  attack  Preobra- 
jenskoie and  put  him  to  death.  Nothing  is  less  clearly 
l)roved  than  this  attempt  of  hers,  nothing  indeed  is  less 
probable.  The  evidence  of  documents  collected  by  the  best 
informed  of  all  Russian  historians,  Oustrialof,^  would  rather 
go  to  prove  that  Sophia  neither  thought,  nor,  at  that  moment, 
dared  to  think,  of  attacking  the  camp  at  Preobrajenskoie. 
She  knew  it  to  be  well  guarded,  kept  on  a  war  footing, 
secure  against  any  surprise.  She  rather  feared,  or  perhaps 
^  See  vol.  ii.  p.  56. 


48  PETER  THE  (iKEAT 

fcifjncd  to  fear,  an  offensive  niovcniciit  on  the  (inrt  of 
these  'picasiiic  rcL,Miiicnts,'  full  of  spirit,  all  of  them  caj^er, 
longing  to  distin'^uish  themselves  by  some  bold  stroke.  It 
was  a  habit  of  hers,  as  we  know,  to  feign  terror,  so  as  to 
give  the  Stn/tsy  or  the  Moscow  populace  a  longing  to 
defend  her.  So  little  did  she  think  of  taking  any  action, 
that  until  the  next  morning,  she  knew  nothing  of  the  warning 
carried  to  her  brother  the  night  before,  nor  of  its  con- 
sequences. For  months  ])ast,  PreobrajenskoTe  and  the 
Krenil  had  both  been  on  the  qui  vive,  watching,  suspecting, 
and  accusing  each  other  of  imaginary  atteinpts.  When 
Sophia,  in  the  previous  month,  had  paid  a  visit  to  Peter  in 
his  camp,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Blessing  of  the  waters  of 
the  laouza,  she  had  brought  three  hundred  S/rc//sj'  with 
her.  A  few  days  later,  when  Peter  went  to  the  Krcml  to 
congratulate  his  aunt  Anna  on  her  fete-day,  Shaklovityf 
posted  fifty  reliable  men  near  the  Red  Staircase,  in  case  of 
accidents. 

An  armed  band  was  indeed  collected  within  the  Kreml, 
on  that  fatal  night.  With  what  object?  According  to 
Sophia's  later  assertion,  to  escort  her,  next  morning,  on  a 
pilgrimage.  Among  all  those  soldiers,  several  iiundrcds  of 
them,  picked  from  the  Tsarevna's  most  devoted  followers, 
there  were  only  Jife  who  dropped  a  threatening  word 
against  Peter  or  his  mother.  Two  others,  whose  names  have 
gone  down  to  posterity,  Mielnof  and  Ladoguin,  thought  it  a 
good  opportunity  to  desert,  slip  over  to  the  Preobrajenskoie 
camp,  and  ensure  their  welcome,  b)'  giving  the  alarm.  Some 
historians  have  tal  ii  them  for  false  zealots,  who  obc\'cd  a 
watchword,  given  by  the  party  instigating  Peter  to  action.^ 
This  may  have  been.  Let  us  get  to  the  result,  which  is  a 
certainty. 

Peter  begins  by  running  away.  Without  thinking  of 
verifying  the  reality  of  the  danger  threatening  him,  he 
jumps  out  of  h\S  bed,  runs  straight  to  the  stables,  throws 
himself,  bare-legged,  in  his  shirt,  on  to  a  horse,  and  iiides 
himself  in  the  neighbouring  forest.  A  few  of  his  KoiiiouJiy 
join  him  there,  and  bring  him  clothes.  Then  come  officers 
and  soldiers — only  a  {^^  as  yet.  The  moment  Peter  sees 
himself  surrounded,  and  provided  with  a  sufficient  escort, 
without  waiting  to  warn  his  mother,  iiis  wife,  or  his  other 

*  Pogodin,  The  Early  Years  of  Peter  the  Great,  pp.  183-226. 


THE  MONASTERY  OF  THE  TROITSA  49 

friends,  he  puts  spurs  to  his  horse  and  tears  off  full  gallop, 
towards  the  TroTtsa.  lie  reaches  it  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing-, tired-out  in  body,  broken  down  in  mind.  He  is  offered  a 
bed,  but  he  cannot  rest ;  he  sheds  floods  of  tears,  and  sobs 
aloud,  terrified,  anxious,  asking  thc^  Archimandrite  Vincent, 
twenty  times  over,  whether  he  may  reckon  on  his  protection. 
This  monk  had  long  been  his  devoted  partisan,  and  even 
his  banker,  in  those  critical  moments  through  which  the 
deliberate  parsimony  of  Sophia  had  caused  him  to  j)ass.^ 
His  firm  and  affectionate  words  reassured  the  young  Tsar 
at  last.  Boris  Galitzin,  the  Regent's  cousin,  Boutourlin, 
and  the  other  chiefs  of  the  Preobrajenskoie  camp,  who 
join  the  fugitive  at  the  Troitsa,  do  better  still.  The  events 
which  follow,  like  those  already  passed,  give  evident  proof, 
both  that  measures  had  been  taken  long  beforehand,  by 
Peter's  familiars,  for  the  struggle  now  beginning,  and  that  he 
himself  was  quite  incapable  of  taking  any  personal  initiative, 
or  guiding  part.  His  mind  was  wholly  set  on  his  lake  at 
Pereiaslavl  and  the  boats  he  meant  to  sail  there,  as  soon 
as  he  could  build  as  many  as  he  chose.  He  left  all  the  rest 
to  his  friends.  And  he  wmII  leave  them,  now,  full  masters  of 
the  situation  they  have  created. 

Before  the  end  of  the  day,  the  Monastery  is  invaded,  the 
Tsarinas,  Nathalia  and  Eudoxia,  the  PoticsJiny'ie,  the  Strcltsy 
of  the  Souharef  Regiment,  long  since  won  ovei'  to  the 
younger  Tsar's  cause,  arrive  in  quick  succession.  People 
who  found  a  road  so  quickly,  must,  surely,  have  been  prepared 
beforehand  to  take  it.  There  is  no  sign  of  hasty  concep- 
tion about  the  measures  for  which  Boris  Galitzin  forthwith 
assumes  responsibility.  Everything  seems  arranged  and 
carried  out  according  to  a  preconceived  plan,  and  even  the 
Tsar's  own  sudden  flight,  possibly  a  foreseen,  and  therefore, 
a  prearranged  event,  would  appear  the  signal  designed  to 
mark  the  opening  of  hostilities  between  the  rival  camps.  As 
for  the  object  of  those  hostilities,  it  is  an  understood  thing  ; 
it  scarce!}'  would  appear  necessary  to  mention  it.  The  fight, 
if  fight  there  is,  will  be  to  decide  who  is  the  master. 

*  Kourakm  Archives,  vol.  i.  p.  53. 


so  PETER  THE  GREAT 

III 

Thc\-  began  by  pailcyin^^.  I'ctcr  wrote  to  Sophia  to  ask 
for  explanations  conccrninij  the  nocturnal  armaments  at 
the  Kreml.  The  Tsarevna  sent  an  ambiguous  reply.  Both 
sides  were  trying  to  gain  time.  One  important  factor  had 
not,  as  yet,  taken  any  side  in  the  struggle  just  beginning. 
The  troops,  native  and  foreign,  the  majority  of  the  Strcltsy, 
and  the  regiments  commanded  by  Gordon  and  Lefort,  had 
made  no  sign.  The  question  was,  which  party  they  would 
serve.  On  the  i6th  of  Augu-it,  Peter  makes  a  forward  step  ; 
a ^rrt///^?/rf  (message)  from  the  Tsar,  convokes  detachments 
from  all  these  troops,  six  men  from  each  regiment,  to 
attend  him  on  the  morrow.  Sophia  answers  boldly.  Her 
emissaries,  posted  at  convenient  spots,  stop  the  Tsar's 
messengers,  while  another  gramota,  signed  by  the  Regent, 
confines  both  troops  and  officers  to  their  quarters,  on  pain 
of  death.  At  first  this  measure  seems  successful  ;  the 
detachments  do  not  answer  to  the  call,  and  a  story  is 
spread  that  Peter's  grainota  was  forged.  Yet  slowly,  in- 
sensibly, the  barracks  empty,  while  the  flow  of  soldiers  and 
officers,  of  every  arm,  increases  at  the  Troitsa.  Symptoms 
of  weakness  are  betrayed,  even  by  those  nearest  to  the 
Tsarevna.  Vassili  Galitzin  is  the  first  to  show  the  white 
feather.  He  had  thought  for  a  moment,  it  is  believed, 
of  going  over  into  Poland,  bringing  back  an  army  of  Poles, 
Tartars,  and  Cossacks,  and  then  facing  events  ;  but  Sophia 
must  have  dissuaded  him  from  a  plan  which  would  have 
separated  her  from  her  lover.  Then,  leaving  her  to  her  fate, 
he  yields  himself  to  his  own.  retires  to  his  country  house  at 
Miedviedkof,  three  leagues  from  Moscow,  and  declares  he 
has  no  further  part  in  the  government.  When  foreign  officers 
come  to  take  his  orders,  he  gives  them  evasive  replies, — the 
irretrievable  signal  for  general  defection. 

But  the  Regent  herself  will  not,  as  }-et,  acknowledge  that 
her  brother  has  won  ;  she  knows  what  she  has  to  expect 
from  him.  Already  the  leaders  of  the  insurgent  Raskohiiks, 
crowding  into  the  Kreml,  have  shouted,  '  It  is  hi;.;h  time  that 
you  should  take  the  road  to  the  convent.'  She  would  far 
rather  die.  She  sends  messengers  of  peace, — the  Patriarch 
himself, — to  the  TroiLsa.  The  august  emissary  takes  the 
opportunit)'  of  making  his  private  peace,  and  appears  beside 


THE  MONASTERY  OF  THE  TROITSA  51 

the  Tsar  at  a  solemn  reception  of  the  deserters,  officers  and 
soldiers,  whose  number  daily  increases.  Then  she  resolves 
to  play  her  last  stake,  and  goes  herself.  Midway,  at  the 
village  of  VosdvijenskoTe,  where,  seven  years  before,  Hov- 
anski's  head  had  fallen  in  an  ambuscade,  Boutourlin  stops 
her.  She  is  forbidden  to  proceed,  and  the  Boyard's  armed 
followers  load  their  muskets.  She  beats  a  retreat,  but  still 
stands  firm,  and  showers  caresses  on  the  Streltsy,  most  of 
whom,  bound  b}'  past  complicity,  by  fear  of  reprisals,  by  the 
temptation  of  fresh  reward,  remain  faithful  to  her.  They 
swear  to  die  for  her,  but,  turbulent  and  undisciplined  as  ever, 
they  appear  before  the  Kreml  on  the  6th  of  September, 
demanding  the  person  of  Shaklovityi',  the  Tsarevna's  con- 
fidant, right  hand,  and  temporary  lover,  that  they  may  give 
him  up  to  Peter,  desiring,  so  they  say,  to  make  him  a  scape- 
goat, an  expiatory  victim,  whose  punishment  shall  appease 
the  Tsar's  wrath,  and  effect  a  general  reconciliation.  She 
gives  in  at  last,  after  a  desperate  resistance,  and  from  that 
time  it  becomes  evident  that  she  can  depend  on  nothing,  nor 
on  any  person, 

Shaklovityi  is  a  terrible  weapon  in  Peter's  hands.  Put 
to  the  question,  under  the  lash,  he  supplies  all  the  neces- 
sary elements  of  the  charges  which  the  Tsar"s  partisans 
desire  to  bring  against  Sophia  and  her  adherents.  The 
echo  of  his  depositions  draws  Vassili  Galitzin  himself 
from  his  retreat,  and  leads  him,  submissive  and  repentant, 
to  the  Troitsa.  This  is  the  end.  Peter  refuses  to  receive 
him,  but  on  the  intervention  of  Boris,  he  consents  to  show 
him  a  measure  of  clemency.  The  ex-Regent  is  exiled  to 
Kargopol,  on  the  road  to  Archangel  ;  then,  farther  North,  to 
larensk,  a  lonely  village,  where,  all  his  wealth  being  con- 
fiscated, he  \\\\\  only  have  one  rouble  a  day  to  support 
himself  and  his  family  of  five  persons.  There  he  will  drag 
on  till  171 5  ;  but  the  Tsar's  half  mercy  goes  no  further. 
Shaklovityi  and  his  accomplices,  real  or  suj"»posed,  are  con- 
demned to  death.  Miedviedief,  shut  up  at  first  in  a  monas- 
tery, after  enduring  the  most  horrible  tortures,  comes  to  the 
same  end.     The  scaffold  makes  them  all  equal. 

As  for  Sophia,  her  fate  is  what  she  had  foreseen — a 
convent,  with  some  precautionary  measures  to  increase  the 
severity  of  the  punishment. 

Peter's  first  care  is  to  settle  matters  with  his  brother.     In 


52  PETER  THE  r.REAT 

a  carefully  composed  letter,  he  denounces  their  sister's 
misdeeds,  but  denies  any  intention  of  touching  his  elder 
brother's  rights,  when  he  claimed  those  she  had  usurped 
from  himself.  He  even  expresses  his  inclination  to  respect 
Ivan's  precedence;  *  he  will  always  love  him,  and  respect 
him  as  a  father.'  He  omits,  nevertheless,  to  take  his  advice 
as  to  the  treatment  to  be  meted  out  to  the  usurper.  Ivan 
Troi'^kourof,  one  of  his  early  companions,  is  directly  charged 
to  order  the  Tsarevna  to  select  a  convent.  After  a  short 
hesitation  she  too  submits,  and  chooses  the  recently  erected 
Convent  of  the  Virgin  (NovodievitchyT,)  close  to  Moscow. 
The  new  regime  has  begun. 

It  is  still  an  intermediate  regime.  Between  Ivan,  who 
holds  his  peace,  accepts  accomplished  facts,  remains  a  mere 
figure-head  for  ceremonial  occasions,  and  Peter,  who,  the 
tumult  once  hushed,  disappears  behind  those  who  hcl|jed 
him  to  pass  victoriously  through  it,  and  returns  to  his  own 
amusements,  the  power  falls  to  the  real  conquerors  of  the 
moment.  Boris  Galitzin,  a  Muscovite  of  the  old  stamp,  the 
living  antithesis  of  his  cousin  V'assili,  begins  by  holding  the 
foremost  place,  occupied  later,  when  he  has  compromised 
himself  and  roused  Nar)-shkin  jealousy  by  protecting  his 
guilty  kinsman,  by  the  Naryshkins  themselves,  and  the 
other  relatives  of  the  Tsarina  Mother. 

The  future  great  man's  hour  has  not  yet  struck.  The 
serious  struggle  into  which,  for  a  moment,  he  has  allowed 
himself  to  be  drawn,  has  not  carried  him  beyond  the  limits 
of  the  childish  era  of  toy  armies  and  sham  fights.  Yet,  apart 
from  its  immediate  results,  it  has  not  failed  to  exercise  an 
all-important  influence  on  Peter's  destiny,  on  the  develop- 
ment of  his  character  and  of  his  talents.  The  young  Tsar 
does  indeed  leave  business  in  the  hands  of  his  former  com- 
rades, but  he  has  found  others,  new  comers  these,  who  will 
rapidly  oust  the  old  ones  from  his  affections,  and  who,  if 
they  do  not  actually  join  him  in  making  the  historx'  of  his 
great  reign,  are  destined  to  point  out  the  road  and  guide  his 
feet  upon  it. 


BOOK    II— THE    LESSONS    OF    THE 
CIVILISED   WORLD 

CHAPTER    I 

ON    CAMPAIGN — A   WARLIKE   APPRENTICESHIP— THE  CREA- 
TION   OF   THE    NAVY — THE   CAPTURE   OF   AZOF 


I.  Peter's  new  comrades — Patrick  Gordon — Francis  Lefort — The  nature  of  their 
influence — Lefort's  house  in  the  Sloboda — A  Rus.rian  Casino — The  fair 
ladies  of  the  Faiiboiirg — The  Tsar  is  entertained — The  Government  of  the 
Boyards — Reactionary  spirit — Annisenients  at  Preobrajenskoie — Warlike 
sports — Pleasures — liuffoonery — The  King  of  Preshurg  and  the  sham  King 
of  Poland — The  Lake  of  Pereiaslivl — A  fresh-water  fleet — On  the  road 
to  Archangel — The  Sea — Death  of  the  Tsarina  Nathalia — A  short  mourn- 
ing— Peter  goes  back  to  his  pleasures. 

II.  Russia's  precarious  position — The  Tsar's  weariness — He  seeks  diversion  and 
distraction — A  foreign  journev  planned— Peler  desires  first  to  earn  warlike 
glory — Fresh  campaign  against  ihe  Turks — First  attempt  on  Azof — Com- 
plete failure — Peter's  genius  is  revealed — Perseverance. 

III.  The  greatness  of  Peter  anti  the  greatness  of  Russia — The  result  of  the  Mongol 
Conquest — Redoubled  efforts— A  second  attempt — Repetition  of  the  Siege 
of  Troy — Success — Peter  can  face  Europe — He  decide^  on  his  journey. 


There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  hair-splitting  as  to  the 
foreign  companions  who  now  make  their  appearance  in 
Peter's  circle.  P'acts  and  dates  have  been  pretty  generally- 
mixed  up  on  this  subject,  even  so  far  as  to  make  Patrick- 
Gordon  one  of  the  young  Tsar's  confidants  and  instructors 
long  before  Sophia's  fall,  and  to  indicate  Lefort  as  the  organ- 
iser and  principal  worker  in  the  coup  d'etat  of  1689.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  neither  came  into  contact  with  Peter  till 
during  the  time  of  his  residence  at  the  Tro'itsa,  and   it  was 

&3 


54  PETER  THE  GliEAT 

not  till  much  later  that  they  were  admitted  into  his  intimacy, 
and  there  played  an  important  p.ut.  Gordon  had  been  a 
follower  of  Vassili  Galitzin.  Lefort  iiad  no  special  position 
whatever. 

Born  in  Scotland,  towards  1685,  of  a  family  of  small  Royal- 
ist and  Catholic  lairds,  Patrick  Gordon  had  spent  twenty 
years  of  his  life  in  Russia,  vei;etatinfj  as  an  officer  of  inferior 
rank,  and  far  from  happy  in  the  process.  Before  ever  coming 
to  Russia,  he  had  ser\ed  the  Emperor,  fought  with  the  Swedes 
aganist  the  Poles,  and  the  Poles  against  the  Swedes.  '  He 
was  clearly,'  say  his  English  biographers, '  a  genuine  Dugald 
Dalgetty.'^  All  his  knowledge  amounted  to  some  recollec- 
tions of  the  village  school  he  had  attended  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Aberdeen,  his  native  county,  and  to  his  military 
experiences,  in  command  of  a  dragoon  regiment,  in  Germany 
and  Poland.  In  1665,  Alexis,  and  in  1685,  Sophia,  sent  him 
on  diplomatic  service.  He  thus  travelled  to  England  twice, 
on  commissions  relative  to  the  privileges  of  English  mer- 
chants in  Russia,  fulfilled  his  mission  with  success,  but  gained 
no  reward  save  a  tcJiarka  (goblet)  of  brandy,  which  Peter, 
then  a  boy  of  fourteen,  offered  him,  on  his  return  from  his 
second  journey.  He  considered  himself  ill-treated,  requested 
permission  to  retire,  failed  to  obtain  it,  and  was  thenceforward 
inclined  to  make  common  cause  with  malcontents.  He  took 
part,  however,  in  the  disastrous  Crimean  campaigns,  and 
there  won  the  rank  of  General.  But,  being  naturally  intelli- 
gent, active,  and  well  born,  in  his  own  country,  he  thought 
•himself  justified  in  aspiring  to  a  yet  higher  position.  Person- 
ally known  to  the  Kings  Charles  and  James  of  England, 
cousin  to  the  Duke  of  Gordon,  who  was  Governor  of  Pldin- 
burgh  in  1686,  he  was  the  recognised  chief  of  the  Scotch 
Royalist  Colony  in  the  Sloboda.  Speaking  Russian,  never 
shrinking  from  a  bottle  of  wine,  he  was,  to  a  certain  extent, 
popular  amongst  the  Muscovites  themselves.  His  lively 
intelligence,  his  external  appearance — redolent  of  civilisation 
— and  his  evident  energy,  were  certain  to  attract  Peter's 
attention.  The  Tsar  was  always  to  lean  towards  men  of  a 
robust  temperament  like  his  own.  Patrick  Gordon  was, 
indeed,  afflicted  with  an  internal  malady,  which  finally  carried 
him  off,  but  in  1697,  at  four-and-si.\ty  )-ears  of  age,  he  closes 
his  journal  with  these  words,'  During  the  last  few  days  I  have 
^  .'^eslie  Stephen  and  Sydney  Lee,  Dictionaiy  of  National  Bio^^ra/'/iy. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  55 

felt,  for  the  first  time,  an  evident  diminution  of  my  health 
and  strength.'  ^ 

Francis  Lefort  arrived  at  Moscow  in  1675,  with  fifteen 
other  foreign  officers,  who,  like  him,  had  come  to  seek  their 
fortune.  He  belonged  to  a  family  of  Swiss  origin,  of  the 
name  of  Lififorti,  which  had  left  the  town  of  Coni,  and 
settled  at  Geneva.  His  father  was  a  druggist,  and  thus 
belonged  to  the  aristocracy  of  trade.  The  women  of  this 
class  had  obtained  leave  from  the  Chamber  of  Reformation, 
towards  the  year  1649,  to  wear  'double  woven  flowered 
silk  gowns.'  At  the  age  of  eighteen,  Francis  departed  for 
Holland,  with  sixty  florins,  and  a  letter  of  recommendation 
from  Prince  Charles  of  Courland,  to  his  brother  Casimir,  in 
his  pocket.  Charles  lived  at  Geneva:  Casimir  commanded 
a  body  of  troops  in  the  Dutch  service.  He  made  the  young 
man  his  secretary,  giving  him  his  cast-off  wardrobe,  worth 
about  three  hundred  crowns,  and  his  card  money,  worth 
about  fifty  more  per  day,  as  salary .^  This  income,  though 
large,  was  far  from  certain.  Two  years  later,  Lefort 
took  ship  for  Archangel  His  first  thought,  when  he  set 
foot  on  Russian  soil,  was  to  leave  it  as  quickly  as  possible  ; 
but  in  those  days,  travellers  could  not  leave  the  Tsar's 
Empire  when  and  how  they  chose.  Foreigners  were  closely 
watched — those  who  went  abroad  were  looked  at  askance, 
as  possible  spies.  He  spent  two  years  at  Moscow,  where 
he  nearly  died  of  hunger.  He  contemplated  disappearing 
into  the  relatively  respectable  obscurity  of  the  household  ot 
some  member  of  the  Diplomatic  Corps.  He  wandered  from 
the  Danish  envoy's  antechamber,  to  the  English  Envoy's 
kitchen,  finding  no  permanent  position  anywhere.  Yet,  by 
degrees,  he  won  friends  amongst  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Sloboda.  He  found  some  kindly  protectors,  and  even  one 
fair  protectress,  the  rich  widow  of  a  foreign  Colonel.  In 
1678  he  definitely  decided  to  settle  in  the  countr}',  and  began 
by  taking  him  a  wife.  This  was  an  indispensable  beginning, 
it  being  necessary,  in  order  to  disarm  suspicion,  to  have  a 
family  and  a  roof-tree.  He  married  Elizabeth  Souhay,  the 
daughter  of  a  Metz  burgher,  a  Catholic,  with  a  fair  fortune, 

^  Unpublished  as  yet,  except  in  a  derman  translation.  The  original  is  in  the 
Archives  of  the  St.  Peiersburp;  War  Office.  Some  fragments  appeared  at  Aberdeen 
in  1S59,  published  by  the  Spalding  Club. 

*  Vulliemin,  Revue  Suisse,  vol.  xxix.  p.  330. 

5 


56  PETER  THE  GREAT 

and  good  connections.  Two  of  Madame  Souhay's  brothers, 
of  the  name  of  Bockkoven,  Englishmen  by  birth,  were  liighly 
placed  in  the  army  ;  Patrick  Gordon  was  son-in-law  to  one 
of  them.  This  fact,  doubtless,  induced  Lefort  to  enter  the 
career  of  arms,  for  which  he  had  otherwise  neither  taste  nor 
inclination.^  It  was  not  from  these  two  foreigners,  clearly, 
that  Peter  the  Great  and  his  army  learnt  what  they  had  to 
learn  before  they  won  Poltava.  As  I  have  already  indicated, 
their  influence  on  the  huge  work  of  progress,  of  reform,  and 
civilisation,  which  is  bound  up  with  Peter's  name,  was  really 
very  indirect.  W'iiile  it  was  yet  in  its  infanc}-,  they  followed 
each  other,  in  rapid  succession,  to  the  grave.  For  the  moment, 
too,  Peter  cared  for  other  things,  and  the  lessons  he  learnt 
from  the  old  Scotchman  and  the  young  Genevan  had  no 
connection  with  the  science  of  Vauban  and  of  Colbert. 

Lefort  now  owned  a  spacious  house  on  the  banks  of  the 
laouza,  elegantly  furnished  in  the  PVench  style,  which  had 
already,  for  some  years,  been  the  favourite  meeting-place  of 
the  denizens  of  the  Faubourg.  Even  during  his  absences, 
they  habitually  gathered  there,  to  smoke  and  drink.  Alexis 
had  forbidden  the  use  of  tobacco,  but  in  that  respect,  as  in 
many  others,  the  suburb  was  favoured  ground.  Nobody 
could  organise  a  merrymaking  so  well  as  the  Genevan. 
Jovial,  full  of  lively  imagination,  with  senses  that  were  never 
jaded,  he  was  a  master  in  the  art  of  setting  people  at  their 
ease,  a  thoroughly  congenial  companion.  The  banquets  to 
which  he  invited  his  friends  generally  lasted  three  days  and 
three  nights  :  Gordon  was  ill  after  every  one  of  them,  Lefort 
never  ap[)eared  to  feel  the  slightest  evil  effect.  During 
Peter's  first  foreign  journc)-,  his  drinking  powers  astounded 
even  the  Germans  and  the  Dutch.  In  1699,  in  the  month 
of  February,  after  an  unusually  festive  bout,  he  took  a  whim 
to  finish  his  merrymaking  in  the  open  air.  His  folly  cost 
him  his  life  ;  but,  when  the  pastor  came  to  offer  him  the 
last  religious  consolations,  he  dismissed  him  gail\',  called  for 
wine  and  for  musicians,  and  passed  away  peacefully  to  the 
strains  of  the  orchestra.^     He  was  the  perfect  type  of  the 

^  Korl),  Diaritiiit  ilinerisin  .1/i?.r(-3<7</w  (\'ic'nna,  1700),  p.  214  — Comp.  Oustri- 
alof,  vol.  ii.  p.  13;  Alex.  Gordon,  History  of  Teter  the  Great,  vol.  i.  p.  136,  vol.  ii. 
p.  154.  Solovicf,  /Jislt'ry  of  /kussih,  vol.  xiv.  ji.  142.  /.a  Ihoi^raphic  dc  Posscll, 
Ir.inscrilied  in  Krencli  by  Vullicniin  {Der  Geticral  iiini  Admiral  J-'rattz  Lefort^ 
Frankfort,  1S66),  is  full  of  curious  informa'ion,  hut  devoid  of  tiic  critical  quality. 

^  Korb,  u.  119.     Oublrialof,  vol.  iii.  pp.  262,  263. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  57 

mighty  rev^eller,  a  species  now  almost  extinct,  though  it  has 
left  worthy  descendants  in  Russia.  Almost  as  tall  in  stature 
as  Peter  himself,  and  even  more  powerful  than  the  Tsar,  he 
excelled  in  every  bodily  exercise.  He  was  a  fine  rider,  a 
marvellous  shot  —  even  with  the  bow  —  an  indefatigable 
hunter.  Handsome  in  face,  too,  with  charming  manners  ;  his 
information  was  very  limited,  but  he  had  a  polyglot  talent 
for  languages,  speaking  Italian,  Dutch,  English,  German,  and 
Slav.  Leibnitz,  who  tried  to  win  his  favour  during  his  stay 
in  German}',  declares  that  he  drank  like  a  hero,  adding,  that 
he  was  considered  very  witty.^  His  house  was  no  mere 
meeting-place  for  merry  boon  companions  of  his  own  sex. 
Ladies  were  to  be  seen  there  too,  sharp-featured  Scotch 
women,  dreamy-eyed  Germans,  and  Dutch  women  of  ample 
charms.  None  of  these  fair  dames  bear  any  resemblance  to 
the  recluses  of  the  Russian  tcrcuis,  hidden  behind  their  iron 
bars  and  silken  veils  {fatas).  Their  faces  are  uncovered,  and 
they  come  and  go,  laughing  and  talking,  singing  the  songs 
of  their  own  country,  and  mingling  gaily  in  the  dance. 
Their  simpler  dresses,  more  becoming  to  the  figure,  make 
them  seem  more  attractive  than  their  Russian  sisters.  Some 
of  them  are  of  somewhat  easy  morals.  All  this  it  is  which 
first  attracts  and  captivates  the  future  reformer. 

During  the  seven  years  of  the  Regency,  in  spite  of  the 
tendencies  common  to  Sophia  and  Vassili  Galitzin,  the 
history  of  Russian  civilisation  could  boast  but  few  days 
marked  with  a  white  stone.  The  government,  ill  at  ease  in 
its  precarious  situation,  tormented,  harried,  fighting  for  exist- 
ence from  its  first  day  to  its  last,  was  scarcely  in  a  position 
to  take  thought  for  anything,  save  its  own  existence.  But 
during  the  seven  years  which  followed  on  the  coup  d'etat 
of  1689,  matters,  as  I  have  already  hinted,  grew  even 
worse.  This  was  a  season  of  anti-liberal  reaction,  nay  more, 
of  frankly  retrograde  movement.  Peter  did  not  cause, 
but  neither  did  he  prevent  it.  He  had  no  hand  in  the 
ukase  which  drove  out  the  Jesuits,  nor  in  the  decree  by 
virtue  of  which  Kullmann,  the  Mystic,  was  burnt  alive  in 
the  Red  Square.  These  executions  were  the  work  of  the 
Patriarch  Joachim,  and  indeed,  up  till  March  1690,  when  he 
died,  the  government  was  svvaj'ed  by  his  authority.  In  his 
will,   the   prelate   charged   the    young   Tsar   not  to   bestow 

'  Guerrier,  Leibnitz  in  Seinen  Beziehuugen  zu  Kussland,  p.  12. 


58  PETER  THE  GREAT 

military  commands  on  heretics,  and  to  destroy  the  Pro- 
testant churches  in  the  Slobodn}  I'cter  was  by  no  means 
inclined  to  obey ;  he  even  thoucjht  of  providinf^  the  Patriarch 
with  a  more  liberal-minded  successor,  in  the  person  of 
Marcellus,  Metropolitan  of  Pskof,  but  he  lacked  the  power. 
Marccllus,  so  he  declared,  in  later  days,  was  not  appointed 
for  three  reasons.  P'irst,  because  he  spoke  barbarian 
tongues  (Latin  and  French).  Secondly,  because  his  beard 
was  not  long  enough.  Thirdly,  because  his  coachman 
was  allowed  to  sit  on  the  box  of  his  carriage  instead  ot 
riding  one  of  the  horses  harnessed  to  it.  Peter  was  power- 
less. In  July  1690  Gordon  thus  writes  to  one  of  his  friends 
in  London  :  '  I  am  still  at  this  Court,  where  I  have  a  great 
deal  of  anxiety  and  many  expenses.  I  have  been  promised 
great  rewards,  but  up  to  the  present  I  have  received  nothing. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  when  the  young  Tsar  himself  takes 
the  reins  of  government,  I  shall  receive  satisfaction.'  But 
the  young  Tsar  was  in  no  hurry  to  take  the  reins  of  govern- 
ment, and  indeed  he  never  was  where  the  interests  of  that 
government  demanded  his  presence.  Where  was  he  then? 
Very  frequently,  after  1690.  in  the  Sloboda,  particularly  in 
Lefort's  house.  He  dined  there  constantly — as  often  as  two 
or  three  times  a  week.  Often,  too,  after  spending  the  whole 
day  with  his  friend,  he  would  linger  in  his  company  till  the 
following  morning.  Little  by  little,  he  brought  his  other 
boon  companions  with  him.  Soon  they  found  themselves 
cramped  for  space,  and  then  a  palace,  built  of  brick,  replaced 
the  favourite's  former  wooden  house.  Within  it  was  a  ball- 
room for  1500  persons,  a  dining-room  hung  with  Spanish 
leather,  and  a  yellow  damask  bedroom,  'with  a  bed  three 
ells  high,  and  bright  red  hangings';  there  was  even  a  picture- 
gallery.'' 

All  this  luxury  was  not  intended  for  Lefort  alone,  nor 
even  for  Peter,  who  cared  but  little  for  it.  The  young  Tsar 
was  thus  beginning  a  system  to  which  he  was  to  remain 
faithful  all  his  life.  At  St.  Petersburg,  many  years  later,  while 
himself  lodged  in  a  mere  hut,  he  insisted  that  Mcnshikof 
should  possess  a  yet  more  splendid  palace.  ]3ut  he  ex- 
pected to  be  relieved,  by  him,  of  all  court  receptions  and 
festivities.     Lefort's  palace,  then,  became,  at  one   and    the 

'  Onstri.ilof,  vol.  ii.  p.  496. 
^  VulHcmiii,  p.  590. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  59 

s.ime  time,  a  kind  of  auxiliary  to  the  very  shabby  establish- 
ment kept  up  by  the  Sovereign  at  PreobrajenskoTc,  and 
a  sort  of  casino.  The  furthest  gardens  of  the  Sloboda 
bordered  on  the  village  where  Peter  and  his  fortunes  had 
grown  up  together.  There  was  dancing  in  Lefort's  house 
in  the  Sloboda, — there  were  displays  of  fireworks  at  Preo- 
brajenskoie.  This  was  a  new  mania  of  the  young  Tsar's, 
He  endeavoured,  in  later  years,  to  justify  the  excess  to 
which  he  carried  this  pastime  (originated  by  Gordon,  who 
had  some  knowledge  of  pyrotechny)  by  asserting  the  neces- 
sity of  inuring  his  Russian  subjects  to  the  noise  and  smell 
of  gunpowder.  This,  after  Poltava,  would  appear  somewhat 
superfluous  ;  still  Peter  went  on  firing  rockets,  and  com- 
posing set  pieces,  with  the  same  eagerness  as  ever.  The 
truth  is,  that  from  first  to  last  he  delighted  in  fireworks.  To 
the  end  they  were  his  favourite  form  of  entertainment.  He 
was  no  sportsman.  Even  as  early  as  1690  his  predecessors' 
favourite  hunting-box  at  Sokolniki  was  falling  into  ruin. 
Like  his  grandson,  the  unfortunate  husband  of  the  great 
Catherine,  he  loved  noisy  display,  and  he  carried  all  things 
to  extremes;  the  entertainment,  to  which  a  considerable  part 
of  his  time  was  now  devoted,  involved  considerable  danger 
to  himself  and  those  about  him,  so  incontinently  did  he  set 
about  the  sport.  Gordon's  journal  of  February  26th,  1690, 
records  the  death  of  a  gentleman,  killed  by  the  explosion  ot 
a  rocket  weighing  five  pounds.  The  same  accident  occurred 
on  27th  January,  in  the  following  year. 

These  displays  of  fireworks  alternated  with  the  manoeuvres 
of  the  Potieshnyic,  also  presided  over  by  Gordon,  and 
accompanied  by  serious  risks.  In  a  sham  assault  which 
took  place  on  the  2nd  of  June  1691,  Peter  was  burnt  in  the 
face  by  a  grenade,  and  several  officers  close  to  him  were 
seriously  wounded.  Shortly  afterwards,  Gordon  himself 
was  wounded  in  the  leg.  In  October,  1691,  Peter  led  a 
charge,  waving  his  naked  sword.  Officers  and  soldiers, 
excited  by  the  sight,  fell  on  each  other  in  real  earnest,  and 
Prince  Ivan  Dolgorouki  was  killed  in  the  scuffle.^ 

The  roughness  and  violence  of  these  warlike  games  were 
not  in  themselves  absolutely  unusual  ;  the  times  were  rough 
and  violent.  Charles  XII.,  preparing  for  his  career  as  a 
mighty  warrior,  outstripped  his  future  adversary  in  this  rc- 

*  Oustrialof,  vol.  ii.  p.  1S6. 


6o  PETER  THE  GREAT 

spect.  But  there  is  a  special  and  characteristic  feature  about 
the  sham  warfare  in  which  Peter  so  deh'ghted, — the  touch  of 
comic  buftbonery  it  invariably  bctra\-s,  which  indicates  a 
special  tendency,  destined  to  be  considerably  developed  in 
the  youn<,f  man's  mind.  The  fort  on  the  banks  of  the  laouza 
had  grown  into  a  little  fortified  town,  with  a  regular 
garrison,  a  flotilla  of  boats,  a  Court  of  Justice,  Adminis- 
trative Offices,  and  a  Metropolitan, — Zotof,  a  former  tutor  of 
the  young  Tsar's,  whom  he  later  created  '  Pope  '  or  '  Patriarch 
of  the  Fools.'  It  even  had  a  King.  This  part  was  pla}'ed 
by  Romodanovski,  who  bore  the  title  of  King  of  Prcsburg, 
(the  name  now  given  to  the  town),  and,  in  this  quality,  warred 
jigainst  the  King  of  Poland,  represented  by  Boutourlin. 
In  1694,  the  King  of  Poland  was  called  upon  to  defend  a 
duly  fortified  place  against  a  besieging  army  led  by  Gordon. 
At  the  very  first  attack,  without  waiting  for  the  effect, 
reckoned  on  beforehand,  of  the  operations  prescribed  by 
science — lines  of  circumvallation,  approaches,  mines,  and 
so  forth — the  garrison  and  its  commander  threw  down 
their  arms  and  took  to  flight.  Peter  was  in  a  fury  ;  the 
fugitives  were  ordered  to  return  to  the  fort,  and  to  figlit  to 
the  bitter  end.  There  was  a  tremendous  expenditure  of 
cannon  fire,  which,  in  spite  of  the  blank  cartridge,  killed  and 
wounded  several  people.  P'inalK',  the  King  of  Poland  was 
made  prisoner,  and  led  into  the  conqueror's  camp  with  his 
hands  tied  behind  his  back.^ 

It  should  not  be  forgotten,  that  at  this  period  Russia  was 
at  peace,  and  even  in  actual  alliance,  with  Poland,  and  that 
the  real  King  of  that  friendly  nation,  whom  all  Plurope  ac- 
claimed,was  called  John  Sohieski !  In  a  series  of  manoeuvres, 
carried  out  in  1692,  I  see  mention  of  cavalry  drills,  in  which 
a  squadron  of  dzvarfs  took  part.  In  1694,  the  church 
choristers,  enrolled  in  some  new  military  body,  were  fighting, 
under  the  command  of  the  court  fool,  Tourgut^nief,  against 
the  army  clerks. 

Peter  was  given  up  to  his  amusements.  During  this  tran- 
sition period,  lasting  nearly  six  \-ears,  the  whole  life  of  the 
future  hero  would  seem  to  have  been  one  perpetual  merry- 
making, one  orgy  of  noise  and  bustle,  broken,  indeed,  by 
some  useful  and  instructive  exercises,  but  falling,  for  the 
most  part,  into  puerility  and  licence  of  the  worst  kind.     At 

'  Jeli;i1)Oiijski,  Memoirs,  p.  39. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  6i 

one  moment  he  was  learning  to  throw  bombs,  and  climbing 
to  the  top  of  masts  ;  the  next  he  was  singing  in  church,  in 
a  deep  bass  voice ;  then,  straight  from  divine  service,  he 
would  go  and  drink  till  the  morrow,  with  his  boon  com- 
panions. 

Von  Kochen,a  Swedish  envoy,  speaks  of  a  yacht,  entirely 
built,  from  stem  to  stern,  by  Karschten-Brandt's  pupil  ;  and 
another  foreigner  mentions  a  note  from  the  Tsar,  inviting 
himself  to  his  house,  and  warning  him  that  he  means  to 
spend  the  night  drinking.^  In  the  list  of  objects  brought 
from  Moscow  to  Preobrajenskoie  for  the  Sovereign's  use,  I 
see  mortars,  engineering  tools,  artillery  ammunition,  and 
parrots'  cages.  VVithin  the  fortress  of  Presburg,  engineer 
officers,  pyrotechnists,  skilled  artisans  of  evcr\'  kind,  elbowed 
the  douraks  (court  fools),  who  killed  soldiers  for  a  joke,  and 
escaped  all  punishment.^ 

Peter's  military  pastimes  had,  for  some  time,  taken  on  a 
more  serious  or  would-be  serious  form.  In  1690,  a  regiment 
of  Guards,  the  Preobrajenski,  was  raised,  with  a  Courlander, 
George  Von  Mengden,  as  colonel.  This  was  soon  followed 
by  the  Siemionovski  regiment, — one-third  of  the  effective 
strength,  in  both  cases,  consisting  of  French  Protestants.^ 
But  the  approaching  campaign  of  Azof  was  to  teach  the 
young  Tsar  the  real  value  of  these  apparently  warlike 
troops,  and  the  danger  of  not  approaching  serious  matters 
seriously, 

Peter  gave  himself  a  world  of  pains  to  build  a  fleet  on  the 
lake  at  Pereiaslavl — the  Pletcheievo-Oziero,  but  this  work 
was  not  his  only  occupation  there.  It  is  a  pretty  spot, 
reached  from  Moscow  by  a  pleasant  road  running  through 
a  succession  of  valleys,  and  over  woody  hills.  The  clear 
waters  of  the  Viksa,  pouring  out  of  the  western  end  of  the 
lake,  pass  through  the  neighbouring  lake  of  Somino,  and  fall 
into  the  Volga.  Westward,  the  gilded  cupolas  of  the 
twenty  churches  of  the  town  of  Pereiaslavl-Zaleski  rise 
round  the  great  Cathedral  of  the  Transfiguration.  Here 
Peter  had  built  himself  a  one-storied  wooden  house, — the 
windows  glazed  with  mica, — a  double-headed  eagle  with  a 

^  Oustrialof,  vol.  ii.  p.  360. 

^  Russian  Archives,  1875,  vol.  iii.  p.  221. 

'  Details  as  to  the  original  constitution  of  these  regiments,  which  were  to  play 
such  an  important  part  in  the  national  history,  will  be  found  in  the  Saint 
Petersburg  Journal,  April  177S. 


6a  PETER  THE  GREAT 

gilded  wooden  crown,  set  over  the  entrance  door,  was  the  sole 
aciornmcnt  of  the  liumble  dwelling;  but  life  went  cheerily 
within  those  walls.  The  shipj-ard  was  but  a  few  steps 
distant,  but  it  is  hardly  likely  that  Peter  worked  in  it  during 
his  frequent  midwinter  visits  to  the  shores  of  his  'little 
sea.'  There  was  the  greatest  difficulty,  in  February  1692 
in  inducing  him  to  leave  it,  to  receive  the  envoy  of  the 
Shah  of  Persia  in  audience.^  The  fact  was,  doubtless,  that  in 
that  retired  spot,  far  from  the  maternal  eye,  and  from  other 
less  kindly  curiosity,  he  felt  himself  more  free  to  indulge 
in  other  pastimes.  These  were  shared  with  numerous 
companions,  frequently  summoned  from  Moscow.  Their 
carriages  often  rolled  past  caravans,  laden  with  hogsheads 
of  wine,  and  beer,  and  h}'dromcl,  and  kegs  of  brandy.  There 
were  ladies,  too,  amongst  the  visitors.  In  the  spring,  when 
the  lake  was  open,  shipbuilding  and  drill  began  again,  but 
none  of  it  was  very  serious.  A  year  before  the  campaign 
of  Azof  Peter  has  not  made  up  his  mind  where,  on  what 
sea,  and  against  what  enemies,  he  will  utilise  his  future  war- 
fleet !  But  he  has  already  decided  that  Lcfort,  who  has 
never  been  a  sailor,  shall  be  his  Admiral  ;  that  the  vessel 
on  which  he  will  hoist  his  flag  shall  be  called  the  Elephant ; 
that  the  ship  will  be  full  of  gilding,  have  an  excellent 
Dutch  crew,  and  a  no  less  excellent  captain — Peter  himself '^ 
The  young  Tsar's  last  journey  to  Pcrei'aslavl  took  place  in 
May  1693.  He  was  not  to  look  upon  his  lake  and  his  ship- 
yard again  for  twenty  years — till  1722,  when  he  was  on  the 
road  to  Persia.  The  fresh-water  flotilla,  which  had  cost  him 
so  much  pains,  given  him  so  much  delight,  and  never  served 
any  useful  purpose,  was  lying  in  utter  decay, — hulls,  masts, 
and  rigging,  all  rotten  and  useless.  He  fell  into  a  fury  ; — 
these  were  sacred  relics,  and  he  gave  the  strictest  orders  for 
their  preservation.  All  in  vain.  In  1803  but  one  boat 
remained,  lying  in  a  pavilion,  itself  fallen  into  ruin.  There 
was  not  a  sign  of  the  house  in  which  Peter  had  lived  ;  every- 
thing, even  to  the  birch  trees,  under  the  shade  of  which  the 
carpenter's  apprentice  once  rested  from  his  toil,  had  utterly 
disappeared.^ 

'  Ciorflon's  /(7;/;«<7/,  Fcl).  i6,  1692. 

2  I'ossclt,  ber  General  uud  Admiral  Franz  I.efori  (Fr.-inkfort,  1866),  vol.  ii. 

PP-  3'3-3'5- 

'  Oustrialof,  vol.  ii.  p.  146. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  63 

In  1693  he  felt  himself  cramped  on  the  Pletchcicvo- 
Ozicro,  just  as  he  had  felt  himself  cramped,  once  before, 
on  the  ponds  at  PreobrajenskoTe.  He  extracted  his  mother's 
long-refused  consent,  and  started  for  Archangel,  He  was 
to  see  the  real  sea  at  last.  He  had  been  obliged  to  promise 
not  to  go  on  board  any  ship — he  was  only  to  look  at 
them  without  leaving  the  shore.  These  vows,  as  may  be 
imagined,  were  soon  forgotten.  He  nearly  drowned  himself, 
going  out  on  a  miserable  yacht,  to  meet  a  ship  he  had 
caused  to  be  bought  in  Amsterdam.  She  was  a  warship, 
but  she  brought  other  things  besides  guns — rich  furniture, 
French  wines,  apes,  and  Italian  dogs.  When  Peter  set  his 
foot  on  board,  he  was  transported  with  delight.  '  Thou 
shalt  command  her,'  he  wrote  to  Lefort,  '  and  I  will  serve  as 
common  sailor.'  And  to  Burgomaster  Witsen,  who  had 
purchased  the  ship  for  him  :  '  MiN  HER,  all  I  can  write  you  at 
this  present  moment  is  that  John  Flamm  (the  Pilot)  is  safely 
arrived,  bringing  forty-four  guns,  and  forty  sailors.  Greet 
all  our  friends.  I  will  write  thee  more  fully  by  the  ordinary, 
for  in  this  happy  hour  I  do  not  feel  inclined  to  write,  but 
much  rather  to  do  honour  to  Bacchus,  who,  with  his  vine- 
leaves,  is  pleased  to  close  the  eyes  of  one  who  would  other- 
wise send  you  a  more  detailed  letter.'^  This  is  signed — 
'  Scliipcr  Fon  scJii 

'/  santus  profet 
'  i ties' 
which  is  intended  to  mean  '  Captain  of  the  St.  Prophet.' 
Peter,  though  already  one-and-twenty,  still  treated  ortho- 
graphy as  a  schoolboy  joke,  and,  for  the  moment,  he  treated 
naval  matters  after  much  the  same  fashion — playing  at 
being  a  sailor,  as  he  had  already  played  at  being  a  soldier, 
or  a  civilised  man.  In  Lefort's  house  in  the  Sloboda,  he 
dressed  after  the  French  fashion.  He  walked  the  streets  of 
Archangel,  in  the  garb  of  a  Dutch  sea-captain.  Holland  was 
his  passion  ;  he  adopted  the  Dutch  flag, — red,  white,  and 
blue — merely  changing  the  order  of  the  colours,  and  he  was 
to  be  seen  sitting  in  the  wine-shops,  emptying  bottle  after 
bottle,  with  the  compatriots  of  Van  Tromp  and  Van  Ruyter. 

In  January,  1694,  he  was  back  in  Moscow,  beside  the 
dying  bed  of  his  mother,  Nathalia.  When  the  end  came  he 
showed  great  grief,  weeping  freely.     But  three  days  after- 

^  Letters  and  Correspondence,  vol.  i.  p.  23. 


64  PETER  THE  GREAT 

wards  he  was  back,  mcrrymakincf  with  Lcfort.  Was  he  then 
heartless,  incapable  of  tender  feeling?  Not  altogether;  he 
showed  nothing  but  kindness  to  Ivan,  and,  till  the  very  end 
of  that  unhappy  Sovereign's  life,  which  occurred  in  1696,  he 
treated  him  with  fraternal  affection.  Catherine  was  one 
day  to  find  him  something  better  than  a  passionate  lover 
— a  friend,  and,  later  on,  a  husband,  not  absolutely  witiiout 
reproach  indeed,  but  trusty,  devoted,  and  deeply  attached, 
if  not  over-refined  nor  impeccably  faithful.  At  the  time  of 
his  mother's  death  he  was  very  young ;  and  he  was,  and 
always  remained,  impatient  of  all  constraint.  His  recovery 
from  the  loss  of  a  parent,  who  had  been  a  certain  restraint 
on  his  actions,  was  as  rapid  and  complete  as  his  utter 
obliviousness  of  the  actual  existence  of  his  wife. 

On  the  1st  of  May,  he  started  once  more  for  Archangel, 
and  recommenced  his  whimsical  sailoring  existence.  He 
made  promotions  in  his  fleet,  just  as  he  had  previously 
made  them  in  his  army.  Romodanovski,  Boutourlin,  and 
Gordon,  became  respectively',  Admiral,  Vice-Admiral,  and 
Rear-Admiral,  without  ever,  the  two  first  at  least,  having 
seen  the  sea,  or  set  foot  on  the  deck  of  any  vessel.  Peter 
himself  remained  a  mere  captain,  just  as  he  had  remained  a 
private  of  bombardiers  in  his  own  land  forces.  Determined 
efforts  have  been  made  to  find  some  deep  intention  behind 
this  deliberate  appearance  of  modesty  and  self-effacement, 
which,  in  later  years,  was  perpetuated,  and  developed  into  a 
system.  I  really  believe  that  the  dates,  the  circumstances, 
the  very  origin  and  earliest  manifestations  of  this  pheno- 
menon, stamp  it  as  a  mere  freak  of  fancy,  which,  like  all 
freaks  of  that  nature,  have  their  logical  explanation  in  some 
characteristic  quality.  It  is  the  constitutional  timidity  of  the 
man,  masked,  transfigured,  idealised  by  the  contradictory 
external  appearances  of  a  strong,  self-willed,  extravagant 
nature,  and  by  the  deceptive  brilliance  of  his  marvellous 
career,  which  is  thus  betrayed.  There  is  nothing  very  deep, 
nor  very  serious,  in  all  that  constituted  the  existence  of  the 
future  great  man  at  the  time  of  which  I  write.  But  all  these 
pleasures  and  studies,  the  new  fancy  for  foreign  company, — 
the  casino  in  the  S/ohoda, — the  PreobrajenskoTe  camp,  and 
the  Archangel  wine-shops, — Lefort,  Gordon,  and  the  Dutch 
sailors, — all  these,  I  say,  had  the  effect  of  throwing  him 
violently,  and    completely,  out    of  the    rut    in    which    his 


ON  CAMPAIGN  65 

ancestors  had  run, — out  of  the  pas^,  into  a  road  of  which  the 
end  was  not  yet  evident,  but  which  already  gave  promise  of 
leading  him  towards  a  future,  stuffed  with  surprises. 


II 

And  how  was  Russia  faring,  while  her  appointed  lord 
rushed  hither  and  thither,  according  to  his  capricious  and 
vagabond  fancy?  Russia,  so  far  as  she  was  capable  of 
understanding  and  reasoning  over  what  befell  her,  was 
beginning  to  think  she  had  gained  but  little  by  the  coup 
d'etat  of  1689.  The  young  Sovereign's  friendships  among  the 
Nicvitsy,  and  his  constant  visits  to  the  Sloboda,  had  caused 
liis  subjects  little  displeasure  or  alarm.  Alexis  had  accus- 
tomed them  to  such  practices.  But  the  late  Tsar's  western 
tastes,  though  less  pronounced  than  Peter's,  had  been  far 
more  attractive  in  their  results — industrial  successes,  legis- 
lative reforms,  real  progress,  bearing  evident  fruit.  The 
sole  apparent  harvest  of  Peter's  firework  displays,  and  mili- 
tary games,  amounted  to  several  dead  men,  and  numerous 
maimed  cripples.  Besides,  though  the  young  Tsar  carried 
his  European  amusements  to  an  extreme  point,  the  Boj'ards 
who  governed  in  his  name  were,  in  all  serious  matters, 
rather  disposed  to  be  retrograde.  Added  to  which,  they 
governed  very  ill.  Galitzin's  expedition  against  the  Tartars 
had  been  a  failure.  But  at  all  events  he  had  been  beaten 
far  from  the  frontiers  of  his  own  country,  on  the  plains  of 
Perekop.  Now  these  same  Tartars  threatened  the  very 
borders  of  Holy  Russia!  Alarming  news,  calls  for  assistance, 
reports  of  defeat,  came  pouring  in  from  every  side.  Mazeppa 
was  threatened  in  the  Ukraine.  Dositheus,  patriarch  of 
Constantinople,  wrote  letters  filled  with  gloomy  rumours. 
A  French  envoy,  he  averred,  had  met  the  Han  of  the  Crimea, 
and  the  Grand  Vizier,  at  Adrianople.  He  had  bestowed 
10,000  ducats  on  the  first,  70,000  on  the  second,  on  their 
prom.ise  that  the  Holy  Places  should  be  placed  under  French 
protection.  The  bargain  had  already  been  partly  carried 
out.  Catholic  priests  had  taken  the  Holy  Tomb,  half 
Golgotha,  the  church  at  Bethlehem,  and  the  Holy  Grotto, 
out  of  the  hands  of  the  orthodox  monks.  They  had 
destroyed  the  icons,  and  the  Russian  name  had  become  a 


66  PETER  THE  GREAT 

scorn  in  the  eyes  of  the  Sultan,  and  his  subjects.  The  Sultan 
had  omitted  the  two  Tsars  of  Russia  from  his  written 
announcement  of  his  succession,  to  all  the  other  European 
rulers.  News  came  from  Vienna,  where  the  Russian  envoys 
had  bouj^ht  over  the  Foreign  Office  translator,  Adam  Stifle, 
tliat  the  ICmperor's  ministers,  and  the  Polish  and  the  Turkish 
cnvo\-s,  were  in  perpetual  conference,  to  the  utter  exclusion 
of  Russia.  That  country  was  completely  put  aside,  and  ran 
serious  risk  of  being  left  alone  to  face  the  Tartar  and  the 
Turk. 

Public  uneasiness  and  discontent,  thus  justified,  grew 
louder  day  by  day.  Peter,  meanwhile,  had  wearied  of  his 
to\-s.  Archangel  roads,  and  the  White  Sea,  frozen  for 
seven  months  out  of  twelve,  were  but  a  poor  resource.  He 
had  thought  of  seeking  a  passage  through  the  Northern 
Ocean,  which  might  open  the  road  to  China  and  the  Indies. 
But  the  lack  of  means  for  such  an  expedition  was  all  too 
evident.  On  the  Baltic,  nothing  was  possible.  The  Swedes 
were  there  already,  and  did  not  seem  likely  to  be  easily 
dislodged.  Lcfort  put  forward  another  plan,  and  now  it  is, 
especially  at  this  slippery  corner  in  the  young  hero's  life, 
that  the  Genevan  adventurer's  influence  brings  forth  really 
important  consequences.  His  position,  for  some  years  past 
has  been  pre-eminent.  He  is  the  first  figure  in  the  series, — 
carried  on  in  the  persons  of  Ostcrmann,  Bijhren,  Munich, 
— of  great  parvenus  of  foreign  origin,  who,  for  more  than 
a  century,  were  to  sway  the  destinies  of  Russia.  Two 
sentries  mounted  guard  before  his  palace.  The  greatest 
lords  in  the  country  waited  in  his  antechamber.  Peter 
treated  him,  on  every  occasion,  with  a  consideration  hardly 
usual  from  a  sovereign  to  a  subject.  He  even  publicly  and 
soundly  boxed  the  ears  of  his  own  brother-in-law,  Abraham 
Feodorovitch  Lapouhin,  who  fell  out  with  the  favourite, 
and  damaged  his  wig.^  During  his  absences,  he  wrote 
him  letters,  which  breathed  an  exaggerated  tenderness.  He 
received,  in  return,  missives  revealing  more  unceremonious 
familiarity  than  affection. - 

In  1695,  the  Genevan  began  to  reflect  on  the  satisfaction 
he  might  find    in  showing  off  his  prodigious  good  fortune 

'   ryliiicf,  Old  Moscow  (^y.  PelcrslniifT,  1S91),  ]i.  491. 

"^  I'ctcr  the  Gre.it's   IVrititis^s  and  Correspondence,  vol.  i.  p.  754.     Compare 
Ouslrialof,  vol.  iv.  part  i.  pp.  553-611. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  67 

before  his  Swiss  and  Dutch  friends.  Peter  had  already  sent 
certain  of  his  young  comrades  abroad.  Why  not  follow 
them  in  person,  to  see,  and  study  at  first-hand,  the  wonders 
of  which  Tinimermann  and  Karschten-Brandt  had  only 
given  him  a  partial  and  mutilated  idea?  What  delight  for 
his  eyes!  What  diversion  in  his  budding  boredom  !  What 
instructive  sights  !  And  what  new  pleasures  !  But  an  objec- 
tion crops  up.  What  kind  of  figure  would  the  Tsar  of  all 
the  Russias  cut  in  Europe?  He  could  only  bring  an 
unknown  name,  darkened  and  humbled  by  recent  ai  d  1  y 
former  defeats,  which  he  had  made  no  personal  eftbrt  to 
retrieve.  This  thought,  doubtless,  it  was,  which  forced  Peter 
to  reflect  on  his  own  life,  on  the  sports  and  occupations 
which  had  hitherto  absorbed  all  his  activity,  and  to  recognise 
their  complete  futility.  A  light  flashed  across  his  brain. 
Before  presenting  himself  to  the  men  of  the  western  world, 
such  great  men,  in  his  estimation, — should  he  not  raise  him- 
self to  their  level,  carry  them  something  more  than  a  record 
of  schoolboy  prowess?  But  how  to  set  about  it?  At  this 
point  the  young  Tsar's  fervid  imagination  fell  in  with  the 
mental  distress  of  the  Boyards,  to  whom  he  had  hitherto 
left  the  cares  of  state.  They,  too,  felt  the  urgency  of 
doing  something  to  help  themselves  out  of  the  unpleasant 
quandary,  internal  and  external,  into  which  the  carelessness 
and  awkwardness  of  a  hand-to-mouth  policy  had  led  them. 
The  impulse  of  these  varied  motives  led  up,  at  this  particular 
moment,  to  the  first  attempt  on  Azof. 

The  intuitive  genius  of  the  future  conqueror  of  Poltava,  to 
whom,  with  many  praises,  the  plan  of  campaign  elaborated 
on  this  occasion  has  been  ascribed,  had,  I  believe,  nothing 
to  say  to  it.  There  was  no  necessity,  indeed,  for  his  taking 
that  trouble.  The  plan,  a  traditional  and  classic  one  in  the 
liistory  of  Russia's  relations  with  her  redoubtable  southern 
neighbours,  had  been  prepared  long  beforehand.  Bathory, 
the  great  warrior  borrowed  by  Poland  from  Transylvania, 
proposed  it  to  Tsar  Ivan  in  1579.^  The  town  of  Azof,  stand- 
ing some  ten  miles  from  the  Don, — called  Tanais  before  the 
Christian  era,  the  Tana  of  the  middle  ages, — a  Genoese 
trading  factory,  captured  and  fortified  by  the  Turks  in  1475, 
had  long  been  the  natural  point  of  attack  and  defence,  for  the 
two  nations  who  had  stood  face  to  face,  in  perpetual  quarrel, 
*  P.  Picrling,  Popes  et  Tsars  (Paris,  1890),  p.  204. 


68  PETER  THE  GREAT 

for  centuries.  It  was  the  key  of  the  river-mouth  on  one 
hand,  the  key  of  the  Black  Sea  on  the  other;  but  the  chief 
effort  of  the  Muscovite  army  was  not  to  be  turned  in  this 
direction.  The  Box-ards,  with  the  greater  part  of  the 
available  Russian  forces, — with  all  the  old  army,  that  which 
had  followed  Galitzin  in  his  disastrous  undertakings 
against  the  Tartars, — were  simply  to  follow  in  his  steps, 
and  fight  his  campaign  over  again,  with  much  the  same 
results.  The  attempt  on  Azof  was  a  mere  accessory,  an 
isolated  coup  dc  viain,  wherein  the  young  Tsar's  originating 
power  was  to  find  its  scope.  The  leaders  of  the  huge  camp, 
moving  slowly  down  to  the  Crimea,  were  heartily  glad  to  be 
rid  of  him.  They  let  him  work  his  own  sweet  will.  Nor 
did  he  himself  give  much  pains  to  his  preparations.  The 
undertaking,  in  his  eyes  (as  one  of  his  letters  written  at  the 
outset  of  the  expedition  clearly  proves),  was  a  mere  con- 
tinuation of  the  big  mancjeuvres  round  Presburg.^  He 
reckoned  on  taking  the  town  by  surprise;  yet  he  refrained 
from  confiding  his  'pleasure'  regiments  to  the  improvised 
leaders  he  had  given  them  during  his  sham  battles  on  the 
banks  of  the  laouza.  These  fights  seem  to  have  convinced 
him  that  the  troops  thus  employed  had  developed  into  a 
real  and  serious  military  force,  fit  to  face  a  great  war  ;  but 
he  also  felt,  apparently,  that  his  present  adventure,  being 
very  different  in  its  nature,  called  for  different  precautions. 
The  '  Kings '  of '  Poland  '  and  of  '  Presburg '  were  accordingly 
dismissed  ;  yet,  faithful  to  a  habit  long  since  abandoned 
in  western  warfare,  he  determined  to  divide  the  supreme 
command.  Three  Generals-in-chief — Golovin,  Gordon,  and 
Lefort^ — rode  at  the  head  of  his  army,  which  numbered  all 
his  newly  raised  regiments,  those  of  the  Guard,  Lefort's,  and 
some  detachments  of  troops  drawn  from  the  court  and  from 
the  cities,  Strcltsy  and  Tsarcdvortsy,  thirty-one  thousand 
men  in  all.  The  expedition  thus  organised  still  bears  a 
close  resemblance  to  a  pleasure  party.  The  Generals,  one 
of  whom  at  least,  Lefort,  has  not  a  notion  of  what  real  war 
means,  wrangle  from  the  outset.  The  young  Tsar  cracks 
jokes,  carries  on  his  favourite  games  of  masquerade  and 
rough  buffoonery,  interferes  in  all  directions,  gives  contra- 

'  I>etterto  Apraxin,  April  i6,  1695.    IVritiit^  and  Ccri espoudence,  vol.  i.  p.  28. 
2  Petrof,   The  Armed  Forces  of  Kussia  (Moscow,  1892.     rublished  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Ministry  for  War),  vol.  ii.  p.  4. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  69 

dictory  orders,  assumes  the  pseudonym  of  Peter  Alexi^ief 
and  the  rank  of  captain,  so  as  to  parade  at  the  head  of  his 
bombardier  company.  Though  he  has  stripped  Romo- 
danovski  of  his  prerogatives,  he  has  left  him  his  title,  and 
in  the  middle  of  the  campaign  he  writes  : — 

*  MiN  Her  Kenich, — Your  Majesty's  letter,  dated  from 
your  capital  of  Presburg,  has  been  duly  delivered  to  me. 
Your  Majesty's  condescension  binds  me,  in  return,  to  be 
ready  to  shed  every  drop  of  my  blood,  with  which  object  I 
am  just  about  to  march,  BOMBARDIER  PETER.' ^ 

The  end  is  what  we  might  have  expected.  Peter,  like 
Sophia  and  Galitzin,  is  reduced  to  misleading  opinion  by 
reports  of  imaginary  triumphs.  Te  Deums  are  sung  at 
Moscow  for  the  capture  of  a  couple  of  insignificant  forts. 
But  all  the  world  knows  that  the  attack  on  the  fortress  of 
Azof  has  failed,  twice  over,  with  great  loss  and  slaughter. 
The  new  army  and  its  young  founder  have  been  tried,  and 
found  wanting.  Seven  years  of  youthful  extemporisation, 
on  the  value  of  which  judgment  has  been  deferred,  have 
ended  in  piteous  and  humiliating  failure. 

Here  the  history  of  Peter  the  Great  begins. 


Ill 

Peter  was  not  a  great  man  only — he  was  the  most 
complete,  the  most  comprehensive,  and  the  most  diversified 
personification  of  a  great  people  that  has  ever  appeared. 
Never,  I  should  think,  have  the  collective  qualities  of  a 
nation,  good  and  bad,  the  heights  and  the  depths  of  its  scale  of 
morality,  every  feature  of  its  physiognomy,  been  so  summed 
up  in  a  single  personality,  destined  to  be  its  historic  type. 
Those  same  unsuspected  powers  of  mind  and  soul,  which 
drove  Peter  into  sudden  action,  and  raised  him  to  greatness, 
were  the  very  qualities  which  Russia  has  displayed  from 
day  to  day,  from  year  to  year,  these  two  centuries  past,  and 
which  will  make  her  greatness,  as  they  made  his.  Beaten 
by  the  Turks,  beaten  by  the  Swedes,  overrun  by  Europeans, 
as  she  had  once  been  by  Asiatics,  after  twenty  defeats, 
twenty  treaties  of  peace,  forced  on  her  by  her  conquerors, 
she  was  still  to  enlarge  her  frontiers  at  their  expense,  to 
dismember  Turkey,  Sweden,  and  Poland,  to  end  by  dictating 

^  May  19,  1695.      iVritings  and  Correspondence,  vol.  i.  p.  29. 


70  PETER  THE  GREAT 

laws  to  the  Continent  of  Europe.  And  all  this  because  she 
persevered. 

Perseverance,  obstinate  determination  to  reach  the  goal, 
even  when  that  seemed  utterly  impossible, — never  to  swerve 
from  the  path  once  chosen,  however  danc^erous,  never  to 
chan;Te  adopted  measures,  though  they  be  defective,  simply 
to  double  and  treble  effort,  panting,  like  some  wearied  wood- 
cutter, to  multiply  blows  and  await  their  result,  resolutely, 
patiently,  stoically, — this  is  the  secret  hidden  in  the  Russian 
soul,  teinp:;rcd  to  adamantine  hardness  by  centuries  of  slavery 
and  centuries  of  redeeming  toil.  The  greatness  of  Peter,  the 
greatness  of  Russia,  are  the  outcome  of  the  Mongol  conquest, 
and  of  the  patient  genius  of  the  Moscow  Kniaz,  hardened  on 
the  anvil  which  wore  out  their  conqueror's  hammers. 

The  Moscow  grumblers  had  fine  sport  on  the  morrow 
of  that  first  disastrous  campaign,  recalling  the  Patriarch 
Joachim's  prophetic  words  and  the  anathemas  he  launched 
against  the  foreign  soldiery,  commanded  by  heretic  generals. 
Nevertheless,  Peter  increased  his  calls  on  foreign  science  and 
industry.  He  sent  to  Austria  and  to  Prussia  for  engineers, 
to  Holland  and  to  England  for  sailors  and  for  shipwrights. 
The  flotilla  on  the  lake  of  PereTaslavl  had  been  utterly 
useless.  He  set  about  building  another,  at  Voroneje,  in  the 
valley  of  the  Don.  He  met  with  enormous,  well-nigh  in- 
superable, difficulties.  The  artisans  engaged  abroad  first 
tarried  in  their  coming,  and  then,  when  they  saw  the  country 
and  the  proffered  task,  took  to  their  heels.  The  native 
workmen,  not  understanding  what  was  required  of  them,  spoilt 
the  work,  and  being  punished,  deserted,  too,  en  masse.  The 
forests  where  the  timbers  were  cut  caught  fire,  and  hundreds 
of  square  leagues  were  burnt.  The  higher  order  of  workers, 
officers,  engineers,  and  doctors,  imitated  and  exaggerated 
the  freaks  of  conduct  of  which  their  master  still  set  the 
example.  There  were  scenes  of  orgy,  quarrels,  bloody 
scuffles.  General  and  Lord  High  Admiral  Lefort,  being 
simimoned  by  courier  to  render  an  account  of  certain 
details,  connected  with  the  administration  of  his  Department, 
thus  opens  his  report: — '  lO-day  Prince  Boris  Ale.xieievitch 
(Galitzin)  is  coming  to  dine  with  me,  and  we  shall  drink 
your  health.  I  fear  you  have  no  good  beer  at  Voroneje  ;  I 
will  bring  you  some,  and  some  Muscat  wine  as  well.'^     No 

*  Solovief,  vol.  xi\.  p.  227.     Compare  Ouj'.rialuf,  vul.  iv.  part  i.  p.  5S5,  etc. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  71 

matter!  The  work  had  been  begun  in  the  autumn  of  1696. 
On  the  3rd  of  the  following  May,  three-and-twenty  galleys 
and  four  fireships  were  launched,  and  dropped  down  the 
river  Don,  on  the  way  to  the  sea.  At  tlieir  head  Captain 
Peter  Alexieief  on  the  galley  Principium,  built,  in  great  part, 
by  his  own  hands,  did  duty  as  pilot.  Lord  High  Admiral 
Lefort,  Vice- Admiral  Lima,  a  Venetian,  and  Rear-Admiral 
Balthasar  de  L'Osiere,  a  Frenchman,  followed  on  board  the 
other  vessels.  This  time  the  Russian  fleet  was  created  in 
good  earnest. 

I  must  at  once  acknowledge  that  it  was  not  a  very  brilliant 
fleet,  nor  did  the  land  army,  commanded  by  its  new  General- 
lissimo,  the  Boyard  Shein,  with  which  it  was  to  co-operate 
in  a  new  attempt  on  Azof,  cover  itself  with  laurels.  The 
'pleasure'  regiments  had  fallen  too  much  into  the  habit  of 
joking.  As  for  the  Strdtsy,  they  had  grown  fit  for  nothing 
but  besieging  palaces  ;  one  cannon  shot  threw  them  into 
wild  rout.  Peter,  as  he  watched  them,  must  have  meditated, 
even  under  the  walls  of  the  impregnable  fortress,  on  the 
fate  to  which  he  destined  them,  in  the  near  future.  The 
appearance  and  behaviour  of  this  camp,  previous  to  the  tardy 
arrival  of  the  military  men  promised  by  the  Emperor,  call  up 
memories  of  the  siege  of  Troy.  The  Generals  lost  their 
heads,  and  Gordon,  the  most  capable  of  them  all,  having 
vainly  tried  to  open  a  breach  in  the  wall,  the  whole  body  of 
troops,  officers  and  men,  were  called  into  council,  and  invited 
to  give  their  opinion  as  to  the  operations  to  be  undertaken. 
A  Strdets  suggested  that  a  mound  of  earth  should  be  raised 
against  the  enemy's  ramparts,  so  as  first  to  overlook  and 
then  to  bury  them.  Vladimir  the  Great  had,  it  appeared, 
adopted  this  expedient  to  reduce  Kherson.^  This  strategy 
was  adopted  with  enthusiasm,  with  the  sole  result  of  causing 
the  Turks  some  little  alarm,  and  drawing  smiles  from  the 
(ierman  engineers  when  they  reached  their  destination,  at 
last.  Peter's  own  high  spirits,  cheerfulness,  and  boyish 
boldness  were  delightful.  He  writes  jokingly  to  his  sister 
Nathalia,  who  is  alarmed  at  the  dangers  to  which  she  fancies 
she  is  exposed  ;  '  It  is  not  I  who  run  after  the  bullets,  they 
run  after  me.  Will  you  not  tell  them  to  stop?'  But  steady 
as  he  was,  even  then,  in  his  long  prepared  resolutions,  he  was 
specially  subject  to  fits  of  dismay  and  momentary  discourage- 

^  I'elrof,  vol.  ii.  p.  6. 
6 


713;  PF.TER  THE  GREAT 

mcnt, — very  easily  tlisconccrtcd,  in  fact.  On  tlie  20th  of 
May,  attcniptint;  to  reconnoitre  the  Turkish  fleet,  which  he 
desired  to  j^revent  from  cnteriiii^  the  Don,  and  re-victualling 
the  fortress,  he  fell  into  a  sudden  terror  of  its  formidable 
appearance,  and  beat  a  precipitate  retreat  with  all  his  galleys. 
At  ten  o'clock  the  next  morning  he  was  in  Gordon's  tent, 
gloomy,  depressed,  full  of  the  worst  forebodings.  At  three  in 
the  afternoon,  he  was  back  again,  beaming  with  joy.  The 
Cossacks,  without  receiving  any  orders,  follcnving  the  insj^ira- 
tion  of  their  own  courage,  had  flown  across  the  water  in  their 
tchalki,  frail  leather  skirts,  fleet  as  the  bird  whose  name  they 
bear  {tchaika,  seagull),  had  attacked  the  Sultan's  huge  vessels 
on  the  preceding  night,  and  driven  them  into  flight,  with 
heavy  loss.*  Here  was  a  fine  opportunity  for  Gordon's 
artillery  to  distinguish  itself!  For,  though,  the  guns  never 
being  properly  trained,  not  a  single  shell  fell  within  the  town, 
a  tremendous  amount  of  powder  was  burnt  in  triumphal 
salvos.  The  arrival  of  a  fresh  detachment  of  troops,  the 
taking  of  a  redoubt,  the  capture  of  one  of  the  enemy's  skiffs, 
— everything  was  made  a  pretext  for  a  cannonade. 

liut  no  matter  !  The  effort,  this  time,  is  so  tremendous,  the 
determination  to  conquer  so  intense,  that,  with  the  help  of 
Cossacks  and  German  engineers,  the  thing  is  done  at  last. 
On  the  i6th  of  July  the  guns  at  last  open  an  effective 
fire.  On  the  17th  the  Zaporojtsi  (Dnieper  Cossacks),  who 
are  as  bold  on  land  as  on  sea,  carry  part  of  the  out- 
works of  the  fortress  by  a  bold  stroke,  and  on  the  18th. 
Peter  writes  to  Romodanovski :  '  Your  Majesty  will  learn 
with  joy  that  God  has  favoured  your  armies  ;  your  Majesty's 
prayers,  and  your  good  fortune,  have  brought  the  people  of 
Azof  to  surrender  yesterday.' 

Now  the  young  Tsar  can  dare  to  show  himself  to  his 
western  neighbours,  and  cruel  experience  has  convinced 
him  that  he  still  has  everything  to  learn  from  them.  His 
mind  appears  broadened,  and  illuininated  by  a  new  bright- 
ness. He  conceives  a  vast  plan  of  naval  policy,  he  lore- 
sees  the  share  which  the  foreign  element  must  have  in 
its  execution,  and  provides  for  it  amply.  He  desires  to 
unite  the  Don  with  the  Volga  by  a  network  of  canals,  but 
he  does  not  propose  to  go  blindly  about  such  an  undertaking. 
It  is  not  enough  to  engage  constructors  in  Venice,  in  Holland, 

^  Gordon's yi'«r«(j/.  May  lo,  1696. 


ON  CAMPAIGN  73 

in  Denmark,  and  in  Sweden.  It  is  not  enough  to  send  fifty 
officers  of  his  household  into  foreign  countries — twenty-eight 
to  Italy,  twenty-two  to  Holland  and  to  England.^  He  must 
follow  them,  he  must  put  himself  to  school,  and  in  grim 
earnest  this  time,  seriously,  laboriously,  in  the  sweat  of  his 
brow.  There  is  something  childish  still,  about  this  thirst  for 
knowledge,  and  passion  for  work, — more  than  one  sign  of 
puerility  will  mark  the  studious  pursuits  of  the  future  car- 
penter's apprentice  at  Saardam, — but  the  goal  is  marked  out, 
the  impulse  has  been  given.  The  great  journey,  the  grand 
tour  of  Europe,  is  to  inaugurate  one  of  the  most  wonderful 
careers  in  history. 

^  Solovief,  vol.  xix,  p.  238, 


CHAPTER    II 

THE   JOURNEY — GERMANY — HOLLAND  -ENr.I,AND— THE 

RETURN 


I.  Precedents — The  Tsar's  incognito — First  disguise— The  great  embassy — 
Peter  Mihailof — Impression  in  Moscow  and  in  Europe  — Departure  de- 
layed— A  consjiiracy — Bloodstained  ghosts — The  woodcutter's  hatchet 
and  the  axe  of  Ivan  the  Terrible — Sweden — Riga,  a  chilly  reception — A 
future  casus  belli — In  Germany — Koenigsberg — Curiosity  and  eccen- 
tric!'ies — An  artillery  diploma — Koppenbriigge — Meeting  with  Charlotte 
Sophia  of  Prussia — Peter's  first  social  appearances — Leibnitz. 
II.  Holland — Zaandam  —  Legend  and  history — The  house  at  Krimpcnburg — A 
fair  Dutchwoman — Amsterdam — Serious  study  begins — Shijjwright  and 
Sov-ereign — Weaknesses  and  oddities — The  Russian  Bacchus. 

III.  England — An  uncomfortable  room — Peter  at  Kensington  Palace — Unfavour- 

al)lc  impressions — Purnet — More  legends — London  and  Deptford — Toil 
and  pleasure — Mrs.  Cross,  the  actress — General  initiation. 

IV.  En  route  for  Vienna — The  arrival  a  failure — Austrian  pride — Moral  depression 

— The  Emperor  and  the  Tsar — The  drawbacks  of  incognito — A  diplomatic 
check — F"ailure  of  the  journey  to  Venice — Alarming  news  from  Russia — 
'  The  seed  of  the  Miloslavski ' — Hasty  return  —  Interview  witii  .\ugustus  II. 
at  Rawa— Close  of  the  journey. 


To  find  any  precedent,  in  Russian  history,  for  Peter's  journey, 
we  must  £jo  back  to  the  eleventh  century.  In  1075  ^^^ 
Grand  Duke  of  Kief,  Izaslaf,  paid  a  visit  to  the  Emperor 
Henry  IV.  at  Mayence.  Thus  once  again,  unconsciously,  no 
doubt,  Peter  took  up  an  old  tradition.  From  the  days  of 
Ivan  the  Terrible,  the  mere  desire,  on  the  part  of  any  sub- 
jects of  the  Tsar,  to  visit  foreign  countries  had  been  held 
high  treason.  In  Tsar  Michael's  reign,  a  certain  Prince 
Hvorostinin  was  severely  prosecuted  on  this  very  score. 
He  had  spoken,  before  some  friends,  of  a  journey  to  Poland 
and  Rome,  which  he  was  much  inclined  to  take,  'to  find 
somebofly  to  talk  with.'     Yet  a  little  later,  the  son  of  Alexi.s' 


THE  JOURNEY  75 

favourite  councillor,  Ordin-Nashtchokin,  having  secretly 
crossed  the  frontier,  there  was  some  question  of  his  being 
put  to  death  abroad.^ 

Peter  himself  did  not  venture  to  brave  opinion  to  the 
extent  of  giving  any  official  character  to  his  departure.  All 
he  dared  permit  himself  was  a  kind  of  half  clandestine  frolic, 
and  there  is  a  sort  of  naive  timidity  about  the  precautions 
taken  to  ensure  an  incognito,  which,  with  his  constitutional 
petulance,  he  was  to  be  the  first  to  break.  A  great  Embassy 
was  organised,  charged  with  a  mission  to  request  the 
Emperor,  the  Kings  of  England  and  of  Denmark,  the  Pope, 
the  Low  Countries,  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg,  and  the 
Republic  of  Venice — the  whole  of  Europe,  in  fact,  save 
France  and  Spain — 'to  renew  the  ancient  bonds  of  friend- 
ship, so  as  to  weaken  the  enemies  of  the  Christian  name.' 
The  ambassadors  were  three  in  number.  Lefort,  as 
ambassador-in-chief,  took  precedence  of  his  colleagues, 
Golovin  and  Voznitsin.  Their  suite  consisted  of  fifty-five 
gentlemen  and  '  volunteers,'  amongst  them  a  non-commis- 
sioned officer  of  the  Preobrajenski  regiment,  who  answered 
to  the  name  of  Peter  Mihailof, — the  Tsar  himself  During 
the  whole  course  of  the  journey,  letters  intended  for  the 
Sovereign  were  to  bear  the  simple  superscription,  'To  be  given 
to  Peter  Mihailof  This  was  mere  childishness, — but  there 
is  something  touching  about  one  detail.  The  seal  to  be 
used  by  the  mock  non-commissioned  officer  represented  a 
young  carpenter,  surrounded  by  his  shipwright's  tools,  with 
this  inscription  :  '  My  rank  is  that  of  a  scholar,  and  I  need 
masters.'^ 

At  Moscow,  opinion  as  to  the  real  object  of  the  journey 
was  very  different.  The  Tsar  was  generally  believed  to  be 
going  abroad  to  do  much  as  he  had  done,  hitherto,  in  the 
Sloboda,  in  other  words,  to  amuse  himself.^  Did  Peter  himself, 
at  that  moment,  perceive  the  distant  horizon  towards  which 
his  steps  were  tending?  It  is  very  doubtful.  He  did 
indeed,  as  he  travelled  through  Livonia,  talk  of  trimming  his 
subjects' beards,  and  shortening  their  garments;*  but,  judging 
from  the  faces  and  habiliments  of  his  travelling  companions, 
this  may  fairly  be  taken  for  an  idle  jest.      Lefort  was  garbed 

*  Solovief,  vol.  ix.  p.  461  ;  vol.  xi.  p.  93. 

'  Oustrialof,  vol.  iii.  p.  18.  '  Ibid.  p.  640. 

*  IJlomcber^;,  An  Account  of  Livonia  [L.nr\(\or\^,  p.  332  (French  edition,  1705). 


76  PETER  THE  GREAT 

in  the  Tartar  style,  and  the  young  Prince  of  Inieretia  wore  a 
splendid  Persian  costume. 

The  journey  indeed,  in  its  earlier  days,  was  very  far  from 
possessing  the  importance,  either  from  the  Russian  or  from 
the  European  point  of  view,  with  which  later  events  have 
invested  it.  It  made,  in  fact,  no  sensation  whatsoever.  I  regret 
to  have  to  contradict,  in  this  matter,  another  legend,  very 
dear  to  the  national  vanity.  Russians  had  already  grown 
accustomed  to  see  their  Sovereign  rushing  hither  and  thither, 
or  rather  indeed  to  never  seeing  him  at  all  ;  European 
eyes  were  turned  in  quite  a  different  direction.  The  moment 
Peter  had  pitched  on,  to  make  acquaintance  with  his  western 
friends,  and  rouse  their  curiosity,  was  a  solemn  one  for  them. 
The  Congress  of  Ryswick  was  just  about  to  meet.  It 
absorbed  the  attention  of  the  whole  world,  political,  com- 
mercial, and  intellectual.  Of  this  I  will  offer  one  proof  only, 
— any  one  who  goes  to  the  Ouai  d'Orsay,  may  there  con- 
sult the  eight  volumes  containing  the  correspondence  of 
Louis  XIV.  with  the  plenipotentiaries  who  were  engaged,  in 
the  course  of  the  year  1697,  in  defending  his  interests  before 
that  great  diplomatic  gathering.  I  will  undertake  that 
Peter's  name  will  be  found  to  occur  only  once,  and  that  once 
in  a  most  casual  manner.  The  Tsar  had  paused  in  his  work 
and  scientific  pursuits  at  Amsterdam,  and  had  travelled  to 
the  Hague,  where  his  embassy  was  officially  received.  The 
plenipotentiaries  mention  this  fact,  and  that  is  all.  He  and 
they  had  been  near  neighbours  for  many  months,  they 
residing  at  Delft,  he  studying  at  Amsterdam, — yet  they  do 
not  even  seem  to  have  suspected  his  existence.  It  is  very 
doubtful  whether  they  knew  his  name.  P^ven  in  connection 
with  Polish  affairs,  which  constantly  occupied  their  attention, 
they  never  refer  to  it.  They  have  no  suspicion,  evidently,  of 
the  part  which  the  future  ally  of  Augustus  II.  aspires  hence- 
forth to  play. 

The  appearance  of  the  Russian  Sovereign  beyond  the 
frontiers  of  his  little-known  Empire  attracted  interest  in  a 
special  circle  only.  In  the  following  year,  it  was  to  furnish 
the  teaching  body  of  Thorn  with  the  subject  of  a  public  dis- 
putation.^ Learned  men  had  already  turned  their  attention 
to  IMuscovy.     In  England,  Milton  had  written  a  book  on  the 

'  Conjectiirit  aliquot  pontkie  de  siisceptis  tnagni  Muscovia  Dtuis  .  .  .  «//«■ 
eribus  (Thoruiiii,  1698,  St.  I'dcrsburj;  Lilirary). 


'       THE  JOURNEY  77 

great  Northern  Empire,  which  had  been  followed  by  a  whole 
literature  devoted  to  the  same  subject.  Leibnitz  had 
recently  expressed  his  opinion" that  the  Muscovites  were  the 
only  people  capable  of  freeing-  Europe  from  the  Turkish 
yoke.  And  it  was  with  this  learned  world,  especially,  that 
Peter  Mihai'lof  desired  to  enter  into  relations.  Erom  this 
point  of  view,  the  brief  interval  of  respite  and  relaxation 
which  the  exhaustion  of  Erance  had  granted  Europe,  between 
the  great  crisis  which  had  placed  Louis  XIV.  face  to  face  with 
the  most  formidable  of  coalitions,  and  the  approaching 
struggle  of  the  Spanish  Succession,  was  a  most  propitious 
moment  for  a  tour, '  on  business  or  on  pleasure  bent,'  through 
the  old  European  Continent. 

The  Tsar's  departure,  which  had  been  fixed  for  the  month 
of  Eebniar}^  1697,  ^^'^^  delayed  by  the  discovery  of  a  plot 
against  his  life.  At  the  head  of  the  conspirators  we  find  an 
old  acquaintance,  Tsikler,  Sophia's  former  henchman,  who 
had  joined  Peter's  party,  but  whom  the  Sovereign's  scorn 
had  turned  into  a  malcontent.  As  for  his  accomplices, 
they  are  easily  guessed, — the  Streltsy,  again  and  always  the 
Streltsy\  Was  Peter  doomed  ever  to  find  them  in  his  path, 
breathing  threats  and  hatred?  This  incident  was  quickly 
closed,  a  few  heads  were  cut  off,  and  at  last,  on  the  loth  of 
March,  the  start  was  made.  But  a  shadow  had  fallen  across 
the  brightness  of  the  journey,  and  the  feeling  of  intense 
bitterness  rose  higher  and  higher  in  the  j'oung  Sovereign's 
heart.  Were  these  Streltsy  to  haunt  him  for  ever?  Were 
they  never  to  cease  recalling  the  bloodstained  ghosts  that 
had  hovered  round  his  cradle? 

W^ell,  war  it  should  be,  since  they  desired  it !  Their 
account  should  be  settled  on  the  first  favourable  oppor- 
tunity. And  he  swore  to  be  on  his  guard  henceforth,  to  set 
steel  against  steel,  unsleeping  watchfulness  against  perpetual 
plotting,  the  scaffold  waiting  on  the  Red  Square,  against  the 
dagger  lurking  ready  in  the  shadow.  The  friends  and  the 
most  faithful  helpers  of  the  Sovereign  must  see  to  it,  till  he 
returned  to  do  the  work  himself  But  even  from  afar,  he 
would  stir  up  Romodanovski's  zeal.  Wheresoever  he  went, 
in  German}',  in  Holland,  and  in  Itngland,  through  all  the 
new  and  wonderful  and  dazzling  sights  he  was  to  behold, 
his  eyes  were  to  cany  with  them  the  terrible  vision,  the 
anguished    nightmare,    of  the    mortal    peril    which    seemed 


78  PETER  THE  GREAT 

bound  up  with  his  destiny.  Thus  docs  the  distrustful,  fierce, 
imj')lacai:)lc  i;cnius  of  his  ancestors  revive  and  grow  in  liini, 
wcddin»j  the  splendour  of  his  civilising  work  to  the  bloody- 
shadows  of  a  horrible  carnage  ;  woodcutter  and  executioner 
at  once,  he  wields  alike  the  hatchet  and  the  axe. 

The  progress  of  the  embassy  was  slow.  There  were  250 
persons  to  transport.  Lefort  alone  had  ten  gentlemen,  seven 
pages,  fifteen  scrving-mcn,  two  jewellers,  six  musicians,  and 
four  dwarfs  in  his  train.  At  Riga,  on  Swedish  ground,  the 
reception  was  courteous,  but  cold.  The  Governor,  Dahlberg, 
sent  word  that  he  was  ill,  and  did  not  appear.  Later  on, 
Peter  was  to  try  to  turn  this  fact  into  a  casus  belli,  and  talk 
of  personal  insult  to  himself.  Officially  speaking,  his  person- 
ality cannot  have  been  in  question.  At  Riga,  as  elsewhere, 
the  ambassadors  gave  the  word  that  the  reported  presence 
of  the  young  Sovereign  in  their  company  was  to  be  treated 
as  an  idle  story.  He  was  supposed  to  be  at  Voroneje,  busy 
with  his  shipbuilding.  There  may  have  been  a  touch  of 
malice  about  the  literal  manner  in  which  Dahlberg  accepted 
this  assurance.  And  the  Russians,  following,  in  this  respect, 
an  inclination  which,  I  am  inclined  to  fear,  has  grown 
hereditary,  demanded  all  the  rights  of  hospitality  after  too 
familiar  and  exacting  a  fashion.  Peter  went  so  far  as  to 
endeavour  to  take  plans  of  the  fortress  with  his  own  hands. 
This  attempt  was  instantly  cut  short.  The  Swedes  can 
hardly  be  said  to  have  done  wrong,  for  Peter's  father  had 
besieged  the  place.  The  fault,  at  all  events,  if  fault  there 
was,  was  on  both  sides. 

At  Mittau,  the  travellers'  ill-humour  passed  away.  The 
reigning  Duke,  Frederick  Casimir,  was  an  old  acquaint- 
ance of  Lefort's.  He  gave  the  embassy  a  cordial  and 
magnificent  reception.  Peter  forgot  his  incognito,  and 
surprised  his  entertainers  by  the  unexpectedness  of  his 
remarks,  and  by  his  jokes  on  the  habits,  prejudices,  and 
barbarous  laws  of  his  own  country.  The  West  was  begin- 
ning to  take  hold  of  him,  but  he  was  still  the  same  extra- 
vagant fantastic  youth.  At  Libau,  he  beheld  the  l^altic,  the 
Varegians'  Sea,  for  the  first  time.  ]^ad  weather  prevented 
his  going  farther,  at  that  moment,  and  he  spent  his  days  in 
the  Wciiikcller,  with  the  sailors  of  the  port,  drinking  and 
joking,  and  insisting,  this  time,  on  passing  himself  off  as  a 
plain  captain,  who  had  been  sent  to  arm  a  privateer  for  the 


THE  JOURNEY  79 

service  of  the  Tsar.  At  last  he  reached  Koenlgsbcrg,  having 
outstripped  his  embassy,  which  travelled  by  land,  while  he 
made  a  short  cut  by  sea,  on  a  merchant  vessel.  He  refused 
to  receive  the  greeting  of  the  Prince  of  Holstein-Beck,  sent 
by  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg  to  meet  him,  made  the  master 
of  the  vessel  vow  he  had  no  distinguished  passenger, 
remained  on  board  till  dusk,  and  did  not  make  up  his  mind 
to  accept  the  lodging  prepared  for  him  till  ten  o'clock  at 
night.  There  he  found  the  Sovereign's  Master  of  the 
Ceremonies,  Johann  von  Besser,  an  accomplished  courtier, 
a  learned  man,  and  a  poet  into  the  bargain.  He  rushed  at 
him,  snatched  off  his  wig,  and  threw  it  into  a  corner.  'Who 
is  he?'  he  asked  his  own  people.  The  functions  of  the 
personage   in   question  were   explained   to   him    as   far   as 

possible.     '  Very  good,  let   him    bring   me  a ! '     This 

anecdote,  I  must  acknowledge,  although  vouched  for  by 
a  serious  and  a  far  from  ill-natured  historian,  has  a  suspicious 
air.^  But  the  numberless  analogous  traits  preserved  by 
tradition,  leave  us  in  no  doubt  as  to  the  reality  of  the 
general  impression  it  produces.  This  much  is  clear,  the 
reformer  of  the  future  was  still  a  young  savage.  The  next 
morning  he  paid  a  visit  to  the  Elector,  conversed  in  bad 
German,  drank  a  great  deal  of  Hungarian  wine,  but,  having 
once  more  assumed  the  character  of  Peter  Mihai'lof,  refused 
to  receive  the  Sovereign's  return  visit.  Later  on  he  changed 
his  mind,  and  prepared  what  he  considered  a  magnificent 
reception,  capped  with  some  fireworks  of  his  own  composi- 
tion. At  the  very  last  moment  the  Elector  begged  to  be 
excused.  A  sorry  business,  this,  for  the  bearers  of  the 
unpleasant  tidings,  Count  von  Kreyzen  and  I'rovost  von 
Schlacken  :  Peter  was  at  table  with  Lefort  and  one  of  his 
dwarfs  ;  Lefort  sat  pipe  in  mouth,  the  Tsar,  half  drunk, 
and  full  of  tenderness  for  his  favourite,  leaning  across, 
from  time  to  time,  to  kiss  him.  He  invited  the  messengers 
to  seat  themselves  beside  him.  Then  suddenly,  striking 
the  table  furiously  with  his  fist,  he  cried  :  '  The  Elector  is 
a  good  man,  but  his  counsellors  are  devils  !  GcJic  !  gcJie  I 
(be  off  with  you  ! '),  and  rising,  he  seized  one  of  the  Branden- 
burgers  by  the  throat,  and  dragged  him  towards  the  door, 
still  shouting,  '  Gelie  !  Gehe  !  ' 

'  Bergman,  Peter  der  Grosse  ah  Alensch  und  Regent  (Riga,  1S23),  vol.  i. 
p.  256  (Russian  edition,  vol.  i.  p.  223,  note). 


8o  PETER  THE  GREAT 

When  he  went  out  to  walk  the  streets  of  Kocnif^^sberj^,  as 
a  simjile  tourist,  every  one  took  to  their  licels,  to  avoid 
mectini^  him,  for  he  hatl  a  fertile  fancy  for  jokes  of  a  far 
from  ai^reeable  order.  Meeting  a  lady  of  the  court  one  day, 
he  stopped  her  with  a  sudden  gesture,  shouting  'Halt!'  in 
a  voice  of  thunder.  Then  taking  hold  of  the  watch,  which 
hung  at  her  waist,  he  looked  at  the  hour  and  departed.^ 

The  IClector,  notwithstanding,  continued  to  show  his  guest 
a  friendly  face,  and  give  him  a  hospitable  welcome.  His 
love  of  show  and  ceremonial  was  flattered  by  the  presence  of 
this  extraordinary  embassy,  and  he  looked  forward  to  the 
conclusion  of  a  defensive  alliance  against  Sweden.  Thus 
he  spent  150,000  crowns — it  was  wasted  money.  Peter 
slipped  through  his  fingers,  his  mind  distracted,  taken  up 
with  other  things.  His  attention,  or  rather  that  of  his 
counsellors,  w'as  absorbed  by  political  matters,  and  by  I'olish 
affairs.  The  death  of  Sobieski  had  been  followed  by  the 
rival  candidatures  of  the  Elector  of  Saxony  and  the  Prince 
de  Conti.  Peter  sided  with  Augustus, — in  other  words, 
against  France,  the  ally  of  the  Turk.  Writing  from 
Koenigsberg  to  the  Polish  lords,  he  formally  announced 
his  intention  of  interfering  in  the  struggle.  Prince  Romo- 
danovski  should  lead  an  army  upon  the  frontiers  of  Lithuania. 
He  had  got  to  threats  already. 

The  embassy  dallied  at  Koenigsberg,  waiting  on  events. 
Peter  seized  the  opportunity  of  satisfying  his  curiosit}',  his 
impatience  to  acquire  knowledge — both  of  them  as  keen  as 
ever.  Certain  of  these  curiosities  of  his  were  more  than 
singular,  as  when  he  insisted  on  seeing  a  criminal  broken  on 
the  wheel,  which  instrument  of  torture  he  apparently  dreamt 
of  introducing,  as  a  matter  of  variety,  into  the  criminal  pro- 
cedure of  his  own  country.  The  authorities  demurred,  on 
the  score  of  the  non-existence  of  any  criminal  deserving  such 
a  punishment.  The  Tsar  was  astounded.  '  W'hat,  all  that 
fuss  about  killing  a  man  !  Why  not  take  one  of  the  servants 
of  his  own  suite ?'^  He  was  working  daily  with  the  Master 
of  Artillery,  Sternfeldt,  and  after  a  few  weeks,  was  the 
recipient  of  a  regular  diploma,  which  should  not  be  too 
seriously  taken.     Three  years  later,  Peter  was  with  the  King 

'  Posselt,  vol.  ii.  pp.  407,  600,  601  ;  Theiner,  Historital  Moiiiimculs  (RomCf 
1S59).  p.  369  ;   Herimann,  Gcschtcfile  A'usslamfs,  vol.  iv.  p.  67. 

'■'   rollnitz  (Baron  Charles  Louis),  Munoirs  (Berlin,  1791),  vol.  i.  p.  179. 


THE  JOURNEY  8i 

of  Poland,  at  the  Castle  of  Birz6,  in  Lithuania.  The  two 
Sovereigns,  both  of  them  given  to  eccentricities,  anuised 
themselves  by  firing  heavy  cannon  at  a  mark.  Augustus 
made  two  hits,  Peter  never  touched  the  target  once.^ 

The  young  Tsar  was  already  the  strange  creature  with 
whom  the  European  world  was  destined,  later,  to  make 
acquaintance,  and  at  whom  it  was  long  to  marvel  and  to 
tremble.  Active  beyond  all  description,  turbulent,  prying, 
cheerful,  as  a  rule,  full  of  jokes  and  high  spirits,  good-natured 
too,  with  sudden  shifts  of  temper,  fits  of  gloomy  depression, 
or  violence,  or  melancholy,  genial  but  wayward,  restless  and  . 
disturbing.  One  night,  as  he  sat  at  supper  with  the  Elector, 
in  a  low  room  floored  with  marble,  one  of  the  servants 
dropped  a  plate.  In  a  moment  Peter  had  bounded  to  his 
feet,  with  haggard  eyes  and  features  working  ;  he  drew  his 
sword,  and  thrust  in  all  directions,  fortunately  without 
wounding  any  one.  When  he  calmed  down,  he  imperiously 
demanded  that  punisliment  should  be  inflicted  on  the  guilty 
serving-man.  The  difticulty  was  got  over  by  having  some 
poor  devil,  already  sentenced  for  a  different  peccadillo, 
whipped  before  his  eyes.^ 

Early  in  July,  Augustus  seeming  to  be  definitely  taking 
the  upper  hand  in  Poland,  the  embassy  started  forth  afresh. 
Vienna  was  the  point  on  which  the  journey  was  to  have 
been  first  directed,  in  the  hope  of  negotiating  a  treaty  of 
alliance.  But  the  Tsar's  envoy,  Nefimof,  desired,  in  appear- 
ance at  all  events,  to  forestall  its  efforts.  According  to  his 
report,  the  alliance,  offensive  and  defensive,  was  already  con- 
cluded. Lefort,  on  the  other  hand,  urged  a  direct  move  to 
Holland,  tliough  his  somewhat  tepid  Calvinistic  zeal  weighed 
less  in  tlie  matter  than  has  been  frequently  supposed. 
Chance  had  far  more  to  do  than  has  generally  been  imagined 
with  the  direction  of  this  journey,  and  even  with  the  general 
appearance  finally  impressed  on  it  by  circumstances. 

It  is  strange  that  Peter  did  not  pause  at  Berlin  on  his  way 
to  Holland — he  merely  passed  rapidly  across  the  town.  The 
future  capital  of  Frederick  the  Great  appeared  to  him  but  a 
barren  field  for  the  gratification  of  his  curiosity.  He  had 
the  good  fortune  to  behold,  elsewhere,  the  most  attractive 
thing  in  all  Prussia,  and  thus  to  make  acquaintance  with  one 

'  Oiistrialof,  vol.  iv.  p.  90. 

^  Pollnitz,  Memoirs.      Pollnifz  is  not  altogether  a  reliable  witness. 


82  PETER  THE  GREAT 

of  the  fairest  fruits  of  German  civilisation  and  culture.  The 
Hlectrcss  of  Brandenburg,  the  future  Queen  Sophia  of 
Prussia,  had  not  accompanied  her  husband  to  Kocnigsberg. 
She  had  taken  advantage  of  his  absence,  to  pay  a  visit  to  her 
mother,  the  Eiectress  Sophia  of  Hanover.  But  the  arrival  of 
the  ruler, — still  a  more  or  less  fabulous  monarch, — of 
mysterious  Muscovy,  had  not  failed  to  arouse  her  interest. 
Mother  and  daughter  were  numbered  amongst  the  most  well- 
educated  women  of  their  day.  Sophia  Charlotte,  at  one  time 
the  destined  bride  of  the  Due  de  Bourgogne,  grandson  of 
Louis  XIV.,  had  spent  two  years  at  the  court  of  Versailles. 
Her  French  associations  had  clung  to  her.  At  the  age  of 
barely  niiie-and-twent)',  she  had  the  reputation  of  being  the 
prettiest  and  the  most  witty  woman  in  her  country.  Her 
intimate  circle  was  eminently  intellectual.  Leibnitz,  who 
was  one  of  its  members,  had  inspired  it  with  the  very 
lively  interest  with  which  the  event,  which  had  so  excited 
the  town  of  Koenigsberg,  had  personally  filled  him,  open- 
ing, as  it  did,  before  his  versatile  mind  whole  new  horizons, 
a  fresh  programme  of  study,  ethnographical,  linguistic,  and 
archaeological,  a  huge  scheme  of  great  scientific  enter- 
prises, in  the  execution  of  which,  the  part  of  the  great 
German  savant,  aided  by  the  Russian  Sovereign,  seemed 
clearly  indicated.  He  had  already  set  himself  to  learn  the 
history  and  the  language  of  the  country.  Long  years  before, 
he  had  called  Poland  the  natural  rampart  of  Christianity 
aj^ainst  barbarians  of  every  kind,  whether  Muscovite  or  Turk. 
All  this  was  forgotten.  Peter  might  indeed  be  a  bar- 
barian, but  he  was  a  barbarian  with  a  great  future  before 
him.,  and  Leibnitz  rejoiced  over  him,  ranking  him  with  Kain- 
Ki-Amalogdo-Khan,  the  Sovereign  of  China,  and  Yasok- 
Adjan-Nugbad,  the  King  of  Abwssinia,  his  contemporaries, 
who  likewise  seemed  to  be  meditating  mighty  undertakings.^ 
Sophia  Charlotte  had  caused  circumstantial  reports  concern- 
ing the  Tsar's  stay  at  Koenigsberg  to  be  sent  her.  These, 
while  giving  her  no  very  high  idea  of  the  degree  of  culture 
and  education  she  might  expect  to  find  in  the  august 
traveller,  had  not  diminished  her  desire  of  seeing  him.  She 
kept  up  an  active  correspondence  on  this  subject  with  the 
state  minister,  Fuchs.  In  May  1697,  she  wrote:  'I  would 
have  him  persuaded  to  come  here,  not  to  see,  but  to  be  seen, 
'  Gucrrier,  Leibnitz  in  seinen  Beziehungen  zu  KusslanJ,  pp.  8-20. 


THE  JOURNEY  83 

and  we  would  willingly  keep  the  money  generally  spent  on 
rare  animals  for  use  on  this  occasion.'  And  a  month  later, 
'Though  I  am  a  great  enemy  of  dirt,  my  curiosity,  this  time, 
is  too  strong  for  me.'^ 

Peter,  interested  in  his  turn,  urged,  doubtless,  by  his 
pleasant  memories  of  the  fair  ladies  in  the  Sloboda,  willingly 
agreed  to  a  meeting,  to  take  place  at  Koppenbrligge,  in 
the  Grand  Duchy  of  Zell,  a  fief  of  the  House  of  Ikandcn- 
burg,  belonging  to  the  Prince  of  Nassau.  At  first  the 
young  Sovereign  took  fright  at  the  number  of  people  l.e 
noticed  in  the  place, — the  two  Electresses  having  neglected 
to  warn  him  they  were  bringing  their  whole  family  with 
them.  He  tried  to  steal  away,  hastily  left  the  village,  and 
more  than  an  hour  was  spent  in  parleying  before  he  could  be 
induced  to  return.  At  last  he  made  his  appearance  at  the 
castle,  but  his  only  reply  to  the  compliments  addressed  to 
him  by  the  two  Princesses,  was  to  cover  his  face  with  his 
hands,  repeating  the  words,  '  Ich  kann  nicht  sprcchen."^ 
Shyness  this,  if  you  will,  but  constitutional  timidity  as  well. 
I  hold  to  this  opinion,  and  see  a  confirmation  of  it  in  the 
continuation  of  the  interview.  For  the  young  Sovereign 
soon  recovers  from  his  agitation,  and  is,  indeed,  very  quickly 
tamed.  At  supper  he  shows  signs  of  awkwardness,  and  is 
guilty  of  some  boorishness.  He  is  puzzled  with  his  napkin, 
which  he  does  not  know  how  to  use,  and  eats  in  dirty  and 
slovenly  fashion.  He  forces  the  whole  company  to  remain 
at  table  for  four  hours,  drinking  endless  toasts  to  his  health, 
and  standing  each  time.  But  in  spite  of  all,  the  impression 
lie  produces  is  not  a  bad  one.  He  seems  simple,  with  a  great 
deal  of  natural  wit,  answers  questions  readily  and  prompt!}', 
and,  once  started,  carries  on  the  longest  conversation  without 
any  difficulty.  Asked  if  he  cares  for  hunting,  he  answers  by 
showing  his  hands,  hardened  by  toil.  He  has  no  time  for 
hunting.  After  supper,  he  agrees  to  dance,  on  condition 
that  the  two  Princesses  set  the  example.  He  desires  to  put 
on  gloves,  but  finds  he  has  none.  The  gentlemen  of  his 
suite  take  the  whalebone  stays  of  their  partners  for  a  natural 
physical  feature,  and  loudly  remark  that  '  the  German 
ladies'  backs  are  devilish  hartl.'     The  Tsar  sends  for  one  of 

^  Varnhagen  von   Ense,  Lehen  der  A'onigin  von  Freusseii,  Sof/iie   C/iarlo/te 
[Berlin,  1837),  pp.  74,  76. 

'^  '  I  do  not  know  how  to  talk  I  ' 


84  PETER  THE  CIKEAT 

his  jesters,  and  as  the  silly  bufifoonery  of  that  individual 
does  not  seem  to  please  the  ladies'  taste,  he  seizes  a  huge 
broom  and  sweeps  him  outside.  But  here  again,  take  him 
all  in  all,  his  attractiveness  seems  to  have  been  stronger  than 
the  astonishment  he  aroused.  He  was  a  lovable  savage  at 
all  events,  and,  better  still,  '  He  is'  (so  writes  the  Electress's 
mother)  '  an  altogether  extraordinary  man — it  is  impossible 
to  describe  him  or  even  to  imagine  what  he  is,  without 
having  seen  him,'  Neither  the  mother  nor  the  daugliter 
iiad  found  those  four  hours  at  supper  a  moment  too  long. 
Both  of  them  would  have  willingly  stayed  longer  yet,  'without 
feeling  an  instant's  weariness.'  The  younger  Electress 
closes  her  letter,  recounting  her  impressions,  to  Fuchs  with 
this  unfinished  but  very  suggestive  sentence  :  '  I  have  said 
enough  to  weary  you,  but  I  cannot  do  otherwise.  I  find 
pleasure  in  speaking  of  the  Tsar,  and  if  I  had  only  myself  to 
consider,  I  would  tell  you  that  ...  I  shall  always  have 
real  pleasure  in  being  of  service  to  you.'^ 

Leibnitz  was  not,  unfortunately,  present  at  this  meeting. 
He  had  reckoned  on  the  passage  of  the  embassy  through 
Minden,  and  had  hastily  sketched  out  a  plan  of  work  and  of 
reforms  to  be  presented  to  the  Tsar  He  only  succeeded  in 
gaining  admittance  to  one  of  Lefort's  nephews,  who  dismissed 
liim  civilly.  Peter  remained  utterly  inaccessible.  Learned 
men  who  knew  nothing  of  shi[)building,  and  had  no  know- 
ledge of  the  preparation  of  fireworks,  possessed,  as  yet,  no 
interest  for  him.  He  panted  to  see  the  country  of  Karschten- 
Brandt  and  Kort.  At  Schenkenschen,  a  Dutch  frontier 
town,  on  the  road  to  Amsterdam,  a  woman  asked  the 
travellers  whether  they  were  Christians.  There  was  a 
rumour  that  the  Muscovites  were  on  their  way  to  Cleves, 
to  receive  Holy  Baptism  ! 

II 

Saardam  or  Zaandam,  and  the  shipwright-Tsar's  cottage 
in  that  charming  little  Low-Country  village,  to  which  so  many 
pilgrimages  are  now  made,  never  knew  fame  till  towards  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Baron  INillnitz,  who 
devotes  five  pages   of   his    memoirs,  written  in    1726,  to    a 

'  P>mann,  Memoirs  hearing  on  the  Htslory  of  Sophia  Charlotte  (Berlin,  l86i), 
pi).  n6-i20.  The  details  of  the  interview  are  taken  from  the  Correspondence  of 
the  two  Princesses  with  Fucks. 


THE  JOURNEY  85 

description  of  this  out-of-the-way  corner,  makes  no  mention 
of  the  illustrious  guest  to  whom  it  has  owed  its  later 
glory.  The  celebrated  writer,  Wagenaer,  dbes  not  refer 
to  Zaandam,  in  his  account  of  Peter's  visit  to  Holland.^ 
A  curious  example  this,  of  the  fashion  in  which  popular 
imagination  will  add  its  own  marginal  notes  to  a  given  page 
of  history.  Historically  speaking,  w-e  may  be  Cjuite  sure, 
the  greater  part  of  the  time-honoured  details  of  Peter's 
residence  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Amsterdam,  have  no 
foundation  in  fact.  It  is  not  even  absolutely  certain  that 
he  ever  occupied  the  cottage  now  so  piously  preserved. 
According  to  Scheltema,  who  quotes  Noomen's  diary,  as 
yet  unpublished,  the  dwelling  belonged  to  a  blacksmith 
of  the  name  of  Guerrit  Kist.  The  records  of  the  Lutheran 
community  of  the  place  speak  of  a  different  proprietor 
— Boij  Thijsen.  All  the  workmen's  houses  lining  the  little 
canal  which  falls  into  the  Y  so  absolutely  resemble  each 
other,  that  some  confusion  may  very  well  have  arisen. 
Voltaire  and  his  disciples  have  indeed  followed  the  life  of 
the  heroic  apprentice  step  by  step,  and  hour  by  hour,  down 
the  whole  course  of  his  legendary  freak  ;  they  see  him 
making  his  bed  in  his  humble  cottage,  cooking  his  food, 
constructing  first  a  model  ship,  and  then  a  model  windmill, 
each  of  them  four  feet  long,  with  his  own  hands.  He  fits  a 
mast  into  his  sailing  boat,  spends  long  days  in  the  ship- 
building yards,  wielding  the  hatchet  or  the  plane,  and  in 
spite  of  all  these  multitudinous  occupations  he  visits  saw- 
mills, spinning-mills,  rope-walks,  compass-makers'  and  lock- 
smiths' workshops.  Going  into  a  paper-mill,  he  lays  hands 
on  the  apparatus  for  drawing  the  sheets,  and  performs 
this  delicate  task  with  the  most  perfect  success.  How  long 
must  it  have  taken  him  to  do  all  these  things?  Almost  two 
years,  Voltaire  assures  us. 

The  Tsar  spent  one  %veek  in  the  village  of  Saardam.^ 

What  brought  him  there?    Chance,  to  a  certain  extent, 

and,  to  a  very  great  one,  that  ignorant  simplicity  which  was 

his  constant  companion  throughout  his  first   European  tour. 

^aandam  was,  at  that  time,  a  fairly  important  shipbuilding 

^  Wagenaer,  History  of  Amsterdavi  (Amsterdam,  1750),  p.  721.  See  also 
Vaderlaudsche  Hisiorie  (Amslt-rdam,  1757),  vol.  xvi.  pp.  377-379. 

"^  Voltaire  has  somewhat  contradicted  himself  on  this  point.  Compare  his 
Works,  1853  edition,  vol.  iv.  pp.  576  and  663. 


86  PETER  THE  GREAT 

centre,  numberinj]^  some  fifty  ship-j-ards,  but,  whctlicr  as 
regards  the  importance  or  the  perfection  of  the  work  turned 
out,  none  of  these  establishments  could  bear  any  comparison 
with  the  shipbuilding  yards  at  Amsterdam.  Peter,  leaving 
the  majority  of  his  travelling  companions  at  Koppenbriigge, 
and  accompanied  by  some  dozen  of  his  'volunteers,'  passed 
through  the  Capital  without  a  halt,  and  hurried  straight  to 
the  little  village.  Wherefore?  because  the  best  workmen 
amongst  the  Dutch  carpenters,  none  of  them,  of  course,  first- 
rate,  whom  he  had  employed  at  Preobrajenskoic',  at  Pcrcias- 
lavl  and  at  Voroncje  had  chanced  to  be  natives  of  Zaandam. 
Whence  he  had  concluded,  that  to  see  fine  ships,  and  learn 
how  to  make  them,  it  behoved  him  to  go  there,  and  not 
elsewhere. 

He  established  himself  in  the  village  inn.  Faithful  to  his 
mania  for  dressing-up,  he  forthwith  sent  for  suits  like  those 
worn  by  the  local  boatmen — red  waistcoats  with  large 
buttons,  short  jackets,  and  wide  breeches.  Thus  garbed,  he 
and  his  followers  wandered  through  the  streets,  visiting  the 
work-yards,  even  entering  the  workmen's  houses,  to  the 
huge  astonishment  of  their  denizens.  These  houses  bore  a 
strong  resemblance  to  those  Peter  had  been  accustomed 
to  inhabit  in  his  own  country.  He  found  one  that  took 
his  fancy,  and  settled  down  in  it.  He  bought  a  boicjer 
or  small  sailing-boat,  fitted  it  with  a  stepped  mast,  then  a 
new  invention,  and  spent  his  time  sailing  his  little  vessel  on 
the  Gulf.  At  the  end  of  a  week  he  had  had  enough  of  it. 
The  ships  he  had  seen  on  the  waters  of  the  Y,  or  in  the 
shipbuilding  yards,  were  mere  merchant  vessels,  of  moderate 
tonnage.  His  presence  had  flurried  the  quiet  population  of 
the  place,  causing  trouble  to  the  local  authorities,  and  some 
inconvenience  to  himself.  Noliody,  it  is  quite  clear,  was 
deceived  by  his  disguise.  His  arrival  had  been  foretold,  and 
a  description  of  his  person  given  to  one  of  the  local  workmen 
by  a  relation  employed  in  Russia;  'Tall,  with  a  head  that 
shakes,  a  right  arm  that  is  never  quiet,  and  a  wart  on  his 
face.'  Some  children,  whom  he  had  treated  roughly,  threw 
stones  at  him.  He  lost  his  temper,  forthwith  forgot  his 
incognito,  and  loudly  proclaimed  his  quality.  He  was  given 
a  hint  that  his  d'^parture  would  be  hailed  with  satisfac- 
tion, and  his  Emoassy  having  arrived  at  Amsterdam,  he 
determined  to  rejoin  it. 


THE  JOURNEY  87 

One  week  he  spent  at  Zaandam, — sailinp^  about  in  a  boat, 
and  making  love  to  a  servant-c^iil  at  the  inn,  to  whom  he 
presented  fifty  ducats.^  ]^ut  his  strange  behaviour  and  his 
carnival  disguise  had  made  their  impression.  He  had 
sowed  the  seeds,  in  that  out-of-the  way  spot,  of  a  crop  of 
picturesque  anecdotes,  out  of  which  the  legend  was  to  grow. 
Before  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  Joseph  li.,  Gustavus 
III.  and  the  Grand  Duke  Paul  of  Russia — early  in  the  nine- 
tt^enth,  Napoleon  and  Maria  Louisa,  were  to  visit  the  dwelling, 
authentic  or  non-authentic,  within  which  the  posthumous 
\\orship  of  a  late-born  religion  had  been  set  up.  Napoleon 
it  appears,  showed  little  interest,  and  Marie  Louise  burst  out 
laughing,  when  she  saw  how  poor  a  spot  it  was.^  But  in  18 14 
Alexander  I.  decorated  it  with  a  commemorative  slab  of 
white  marble.  The  poet  Joukovski,  going  thither  with  the 
future  Emperor  Alexander  II.,  pencilled  the  cottage  walls 
with  some  enthusiasfc  lines,  saluting  the  cradle  of  Russia 
under  that  humble  roof  Modern  tourists  may  read  the 
following  distich,  beside  a  portrait  of  the  great  man  : 

'  Nichts  is 

den  groottn  man 

te  Klein.' 

The  cottage,  which  stands  on  the  Krimp,  in  the  western  and 
somewhat  retired  quarter  of  the  town,  is  a  wooden  structure 
on  a  brick-built  foundation.  Guerrit  Kist,  or  Boij  Thijsen, 
shared  it,  in  the  year  1697,  with  a  widow,  who  relinquished 
her  lodging  to  Peter  in  consideration  of  a  rent  of  seven 
florins — which  he  omitted  to  pay  ;  he  was  always  apt  to 
forget  such  matters.  There  is  one  room  only,  a  funnel- 
shaped  chimney-corner,  with  wooden  jambs  and  mantel- 
piece, a  sort  of  wooden  cupboard  with  folding  doors, 
A\  ire-latticed,  and  hung  with  curtains,  in  which  the  sleeping- 
mattress  was  placed  {betsteede)  and  a  ladder  leading  to  the 
attic  ;  no  other  furniture  which  can  have  been  used  by  the 
tenaiit  in  1697,  all  the  rest  was  bought  by  the  Empress 
Elizabeth,  and  carried  off  to  Russia.     The  house,  which,  after 

^  Mcerniann,  I ecttire  on  Feter  the  Great's  First  Journey  {Vd^xxs.,  1812),  p.  59, 
etc.;  Narlof,  Aneeiiotes  of  Feter  the  Great  (St.  I'eterslurg,  1891^,  pp.  5-7; 
Noflvieii's  titifuhlished Jotirtial  in  the  Utrecht  Lihiary.  This  journal  is  shortly 
to  be  published  by  Frofessor  Kort,  of  Dorpat  (lourief).  ScheUenia  relied  on  it 
absolutely,     Koonien  was  a  Zaandam  clolh-mcrchant. 

'^  Scheltema,  Historical  Avecdotes  of  Feter  the  Great  (Lausanne,  1S42),  p.  409. 

7 


88  I'KTER  TllK  CHEAT 

the  Tsnr's  departure,  was  the  home  of  several  generations  of 
artisans,  was  for  a  long  time  utterly  forgotten  ;  it  is  just 
possible  that  it  ma\- have  been  recognised.  A  sort  of  arched 
shed,  built  by  the  King  of  Holland,  surrounds  and  preserves 
what  now  remains  of  it ; — the  western  side,  that  is  to  say, 
consisting  of  two  rooms  with  a  loft  above  them,  all  of  them 
sinking  under  the  weight  of  the  ruined  roof.  The  right  side 
of  the  building  and  the  chimney  have  utterly  disappeared. 
The  Dutch  quite  lately  made  over  these  relics  to  the  Russian 
Government,  and  this  has  taken  fresh  measures  for  their 
preservation,  which  may  be  indispensable,  but  which  are 
somewhat  distressing  to  lovers  of  the  picturesque.  There  is 
even  a  Calorifere\ 

A  picture  of  the  Dutch  school,  once  at  the  Mon  Plaisir 
Palace  at  Peterhof,  representing  a  man  in  a  red  waist- 
coat, clasping  a  girl  of  veiy  opulent  charms,  long  had  the 
reputation  of  being  a  memento  of  the  great  man's  visit  to 
Saardam.  This  canvas,  now  at  the  Hermitage  Palace,  was 
certainly  not  painted  from  nature,  for  the  artist,  1.  I.  Hore- 
mans,  was  not  born  till  17 15.  Nartof,  who  was,  in  later 
years,  a  member  of  Peter's  intimate  circle,  mentions  the  girl, 
who,  he  says,  would  not  consent  to  accept  Peter's  advances, 
till  a  glance  into  the  stranger's  purse  had  convinced  her  he 
was  no  common  boatman  ;  and  in  a  fragment  of  a  letter  in 
Leibnitz's  collection,  which  bears  no  indication  of  its  origin, 
I  find,  under  the  date  of  27th  Nov.  1697,  the  following 
lines  : — '  The  Tsar  has  happened  on  a  peasant  girl  of  Saar- 
dam, who  pleases  his  fancy,  and  on  holidays,  he  betakes 
himself  there  alone  in  his  boat,  to  take  his  pleasure  with 
her,  after  the  manner  of  Mercules.'  ^ 

Peter  found  better  employment  at  Amsterdam.  His 
arrival  there  was  awaited  by  a  friend,  well-nigh  a  collabo- 
rator, the  burgomaster  of  the  town,  Nicholas  Witsen.  This 
official,  who  had  visited  Russia  during  the  reign  of  Alexis, 
and  written  a  celebrated  book  on  lilastern  and  Southern 
Tartary,  who  was  the  constant  correspondent  of  Lefort,  and 
acted  as  his  master's  intermediarv  in  tiie  matter  of  the  ships 
ordered,  and  other  purchases  made  by  him,  in  Holland,  could 
not  fail  to  offer  the  traveller  the  heartiest  welcome.  He  lost 
no  time  in  obtaining  access  for  him  to  the  great  shipbuild- 
ing yards  of  the  East  Indian  Company.  This  marks  the 
'  Guerrier,  Leibnitz  Correspondence  (St.  Petersburg,  1S73),  P-  S'* 


THE  JOURNEY  89 

opening  of  the  serious  work  and  usefulness  of  Peter's  first 
journey. 

The  man  himself  was  still  unchanged,  with  his  fads  and 
his  oddities,  his  queer  habits  and  grimaces.  He  still  pre- 
tended to  hide  himself  under  the  name  of  'Master  Peter' 
{Peterbas)  or  '  Carpenter  Peter  of  Zaandam,'  shammed  deaf- 
ness if  he  was  addressed  in  any  other  manner,  and  thus 
contrived  to  make  himself  more  remarkable  than  ever. 
When  his  Embassy  went  to  the  Hague,  to  be  received  in 
solemn  audience,  he  refused  to  accompanx'  it,  but  intimated 
his  desire  to  watch  the  reception  from  a  neighbouring  room. 
Some  company  having  entered  this  apartment,  the  Tsar 
desired  to  leave  it,  but,  finding  that,  for  this  purpose,  he  was 
obliged  to  cross  the  audience-chamber,  he  requested  that 
the  members  of  the  States-General  should  turn  their  faces 
to  the  wall,  so  that  they  might  not  see  him  !^  He  reached 
the  Hague  at  eleven  o'clock  at  night.  At  the  Amsterdam 
hotel,  to  which  he  was  first  conducted,  he  refused  the  fine 
bed  prepared  for  him,  in  the  best  room,  and  insisted  on 
climbing  up  to  the  roof,  to  choose  some  tiny  chamber. 
Then  changing  his  mind  utterly,  he  resolved  to  seek  a 
lodging  elsewhere.  Thus  it  came  about  that  the  Old  Doelen 
Inn  had  the  honour  of  his  presence.  One  of  his  servants 
was  there  already,  sleeping  in  a  corner  on  his  bear-skin. 
The  Tsar  kicked  him  to  his  feet ;  '  Give  me  thy  place  !  '^ 

He  stopped  his  carriage  twenty  times  between  Amsterdam 
and  the  Hague,  to  measure  the  width  of  a  bridge,  go  into  a 
mill,  which  he  had  to  reach  by  crossing  a  meadow,  where 
the  water  was  often  up  to  his  knees,  or  enter  some  middle- 
class  house,  whose  inhabitants  he  caused,  first  of  all,  to  be 
sent  outside.  Wherever  he  went,  his  insatiable  curiosity 
and  whimsicality  went  with  him.  He  barely  escaped  maim- 
ing himself  by  suddenly  stopping  a  saw-mill.  He  clung  to 
the  driving  wheel  in  a  silk  factory,  at  the  risk  of  being 
carried  away  by  one  of  the  secondary  wheels  ;  he  studied 
architecture  with  Simon  Schynvoet  of  Leyden,  mechanics 
with  Van  der  Heyden,  fortification  with  Cochorn,  whom  he 
tried  hard  to  enlist  in  his  own  service, — printing  with  one 
of  the  Tessing  brothers, —  anatomy  with  Ruysch,  natural 
history  with  Leuwenhoek.  He  took  the  gentlemen  of  his 
suite    into    the   celebrated    Boerhaave's    anatomical   theatre, 

*  Schcltema,  jip.  140-142.  *  Jbid. 


90  PETER  THE  GREAT 

and  when  tlicy  expressed  some  disi^ust  at  the  preparations 
they  s.iw  there,  he  forced  thein  to  bite  into  the  corpse  which 
was  beint^  dissected.  lie  learned  to  use  compass,  and  sword, 
and  plane,  and  even  the  instruments  of  a  tooth-drawer, 
whom  he  saw,  one  day,  operating  in  the  open  air,  in  a  pubh'c 
square.  Me  built  a  frigate,  he  made  his  own  bed,  did  his 
own  cooking,  constructed  a  Russian  bath  for  his  own  use  ;^ 
he  took  drawing  lessons  too,  and  learned  to  engrave  on 
copper,  frequented  the  studio  of  Koerten  Block,  sat  to  her 
for  his  portrait,  wrote  his  name  in  her  album,  and  himself 
engraved  a  plate  showing  forth  the  triumph  of  the  Christian 
religion  over  the  Moslem  faith.^ 

There  is  more  feverish  activity  than  reasoned  a{:)plication 
about  all  this,  a  great  deal  of  caprice  too,  and  even  a  touch  of 
insanity.  Tiic  notions  of  science  and  art  thus  picked  up  are 
somewhat  disconcerting.  '  If  you  want  to  build  a  ship,'  we 
read  in  one  of  Peter's  note-books  belonging  to  this  period, 
'you  must  begin,  after  taking  the  superficial  area,  by  making 
a  right  angle  at  each  end.'^  Napoleon,  with  all  the  univer- 
sality of  his  genius, — the  widest  and  the  most  comprehensive 
our  modern  world  has  ever  known, — never  pretended  to  be  a 
great  doctor  or  a  skilful  etcher.  All  his  practical  knowledge 
was  specialised.  Yet  Peter  was  following  an  instinct  which 
was  not  to  play  him  false.  He  was  giving  himself  the  best 
of  preparations  for  the  real  task  wliich  awaited  him, — not 
the  building  of  ships,  or  of  factories,  or  of  palaces  (foreign 
specialists  could  always  be  brought  in  for  such  pur[)oses), 
but  the  inauguration  of  a  whole  plan  of  civilisation.  He  was, 
after  all,  carrying  on  the  process  which  had  begun  with  his 
first  uncertain  gropings  amongst  the  exotic  riches  of  the 
Oronjcnna'ia  Palata,  the  inventory — inevitably  hasty,  and 
summary — of  the  various  treasures,  industrial,  scientific,  and 
artistic,  which  he  proposed  to  borrow  from  the  Western 
world.  But  as  his  field  of  curiosity  enlarged,  and,  with  it,  his 
mind  widened,  the  careless  child,  the  inattentive  youth,  of 
former  days,  showed  more  and  more  of  the  qualities  of  the 
Sovereign.     Often,  at  Pcrciaslavl,  or  at  Archangel,  he  had 

1  Mcermann,  p.  60. 

'  Scheltcma,  Russia  atid  the  Lmv  Countries  {hms.\.c^^TiVC\,  1817).  vol.  i.  p.  221  ; 
F.  Miillcr,  Attempt  at  a  Kussian-Nethcrlattd  Bi/'liri:ya/'/iy.  pp.  164,  165; 
Pickarski,  Literature  and  Seieiice  ni  Kiissia  (St.  Petersburg,  1S62),  vol.  i.  p.  9. 
The  cngravinf^  referred  to  is  in  the  Amsterdam  Museum. 

'  Oustrialof,  vol.  iii.  p.  93. 


THE  JOURNEY  gi 

utterly  forgotten  Moscow,  and  the  rest  of  his  empire.  But 
this  was  past.  Far  as  he  was  from  his  capital,  and  the 
frontiers  of  his  country,  he  insisted  on  being  kept  informed 
of  the  smallest  details  in  the  management  of  those  public 
affairs,  which  he  had  once  so  willingly  neglected.  He  would 
know  everything  that  happened,  hour  by  iiour  ;  and  many 
things  were  happening.  Even  the  momentary  application  of 
his  energetic  activity  in  that  direction  had  borne  fruit.  Near 
Azof,  the  forts  of  Alexis  and  of  Peter  were  in  course  of 
building,  at  Taganrog,  two  m.ore  forts,  named  after  the 
Trinity  and  St.  Paul,  and  a  harbour,  were  being  constructed. 
On  the  Dnieper,  the  Turkish  attacks  on  the  fortresses  of  Kazy- 
kermen  and  of  Tavan  had  been  victoriously  repulsed.  The 
navy,  too,  was  making  rapid  progress.  The  King  of  Sweden 
had  sent  300  cannon  to  arm  the  ships,  either  not  dreaming 
they  might  ever  be  turned  against  himself,  or  heroically 
indifferent  to  that  possibility.  Augustus  was  strengthening 
his  position  in  Poland.  Of  all  these  things  Peter  was 
informed  ;  he  kept  up  an  active  correspondence  with  the 
persons  charged  to  represent  him  at  the  head  of  the 
Government.  Romodanovski  gave  him  news  of  the  Streltsy, 
Vinnius  wrote  to  ask  him  for  Dutch  gunsmiths.  He  did 
even  better  than  to  send  him  these.  He  set  about  recruit- 
ing a  whole  staff,  most  numerous  and  varied,  which  was  to 
second  him  in  that  work  of  transformation,  the  plan  of 
•which  was  growing  clearer  and  clearer  in  his  brain  ; — a 
skilled  boatswain,  of  Norwegian  birth,  Cornelius  Cruys, 
whom  he  made  an  admiral  ;  several  naval  captains,  three- 
and-twenty  commanders,  five-and-thirty  lieutenants,  seventy- 
two  pilots,  fifty  physicians  ;  three  hundred  and  fort\'-five 
sailors,  and  four  cooks.  These  men  would  need  special 
stores.  He  set  himself  to  collect  and  send  them  off  Two 
hundred  and  sixty  cases,  filled  with  guns,  pistols,  cannon, 
sail-cloth,  compasses,  saws,  cabinet-makers'  tools,  whale- 
bone, cork,  and  anchors,  and  marked  w  ith  the  letters  P.M. 
(Peter  Miha'iiof)  were  despatched  to  Moscow.  One  consign- 
ment— the  germ  of  the  future  School  of  P'ine  Arts— consisted 
of  eight  blocks  of  marble,  designed,  no  doubt,  to  rouse  the 
inspiration  of  future  artists.  Another  case  contained  a 
stuffed  crocodile.  Here  we  have  the  nucleus  of  a  museum.^ 
There  were  occasional  checks  in  this  wonderful  activity, —  a 

'  Oustiialof,  vol.  iii.  pp.  104- no. 


92  PETER  THE  GREAT 

pause,  now  and  then,  in  the  Sovereign's  correspondence 
with  his  representatives.  Peter's  answers  were  sometimes 
slow  in  coming.  He  would  soon  excuse  himself  shyl}', 
almost  humbly— the  fault  lay  with  Hmiclnitski,  the  Russian 
Hacclius.^  Lefort's  pupil  had  not — never  was  to — cast  off 
tiic  old  man  in  this  respect.  The  weaknesses  of  the 
daily  guest  at  the  Slolwda  banquets  still  clung  to  him. 
Hut,  in  spite  of  all,  he  found  means,  during  those  four 
months  spent  in  Holland,  to  accomplish  an  enormous  amount 
of  work. 

He  was  left  in  perfect  freedom  for  the  purpose.  His 
eight  days'  visit  to  Zaandam  had  revolutionised  the  vil- 
lage. At  Amsterdam,  once  the  first  moment  of  surprise 
was  past,  his  presence  was  almost  unobserved.  It  was  not 
till  some  years  later  that  the  greatness  of  the  part  he  was 
called  to  play,  and  the  frequency  of  his  visits  to  Europe, 
drew  public  attention  to  his  relatively  obscure  beginnings. 
And  then,  taken  at  a  disadvantage,  finding  no  trace  of  its 
hero  in  the  turmoil  of  the  great  maritime  city,  the  legend 
was  fain  to  seek  its  guiding  marks  in  a  more  modest  spot, 
and  thus  settled  at  Zaandam.  The  immediate  impression 
left  there,  by  the  visit  of  Peter  Mihailof  and  his  noisy 
comrades,  is  clearly  shown  in  the  two  following  extracts 
from  contemporary  chronicles. 

The  Records  of  the  Lutheran  community  at  ZaaruJam  : — 

'  He  came  incognito,  with  very  few  followers,  spent  a 
week  at  Krimpcnburg,  in  the  house  of  a  blacksmith,  of  the 
name  of  Boij  Thijsen,  and  then  went  to  Amsterdam,  where 
his  great  Embassy  had  arrived.  He  was  seven  feet  high, 
wore  the  dress  of  the  peasants  of  Zaandam,  worked  in 
the  admiralty  dockyard,  and  is  a  great  admirer  of  ship- 
building.' 

Noomen's  Journal : — 

'  Thus  were  the  State  and  our  little  town  of  Westzaandam 
delivered  and  released  from  these  celebrated,  numerous, 
distinguished,  extraordinary,  and  very  costly  visitors.' 

A  resolution  of  the  States  General,  dated  15th  August 
169S,  informs  us  that  the  entertainment  of  the  Embassy  cost 
the  State   100,000  florins.      Neither  this  document,  nor  any 

'  Hmiclnitski  was  the  victorious  Chief  who  led  the  Cossacks  in  their  striigcjle 
against  the  Poles  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Both  in  Russian,  and  in  I'olish,  the 
Wold  Iliiiiel  means  ^<?/.t,  and  aIho  (/runi-e»fuss. 


THE  JOURNEY  93 

of  the  other  resolutions  referring  to  the  stay  of  the  Ambas- 
sadors at  Amsterdam,  contains  any  reference  to  Peter 
himself^ 


III 

In  the  seventeenth  century,  the  Amsterdam  shipbuilders 
had  a  well-deserved  reputation,  but  they  were  more  prac- 
tical than  learned.  Their  processes  differed  in  different 
ship-yards,  but  no  consistent  theory,  no  carefully  thought- 
out  justification  of  traditional  proportions  and  methods, 
existed  in  any  one  of  them.  Peter,  as  his  study  of  the  craft 
advanced,  became  aware  of  this,  and  the  fact  distressed  him. 
The  why  and  the  wherefore,  and  with  that,  all  chance  of 
making-  the  pirinciple  his  own,  were  beginning  to  escape  him. 
An  Englishman  whom  he  met  at  the  country  house  of  the 
cloth-merchant,  John  Tessing,  boasted  of  the  superiority  of 
English  shipbuilders  in  this  respect.  '  In  his  country,'  he 
said,  'theory  and  practice  went  hand  in  hand.'  Thus  it 
came  about,  that  in  January,  1698,  the  young  Tsar  was  in- 
duced to  cross  the  Channel. 

He  had  met  William  III.  already,  both  at  Utrecht  and  at 
the  Hague,  and  was  assured  of  a  courteous  welcome.  A 
yacht  belonging  to  the  Royal  Navy,  with  an  escort  of  three 
battle-ships,  was  sent  to  fetch  him  from  Amsterdam.  Vice- 
Admiral  Mitchell,  and  the  Marquis  of  Caermartiien — this  last 
an  oddity,  and  almost  as  heroic  a  brandy-drinker  as  Lefort 
himself, — were  attached  to  the  person  of  the  Imperial  guest. 
Some  uncertainty  exists  regarding  the  house  inhabited  by 
the  Tsar,  during  his  stay  in  London.  Some  believe  it  to 
have  been  15  Buckingham  Street,  Strand,  on  the  walls  of 
which  a  commemorative  inscription  is  now  placed.  Others 
ojMne  that  he  lived  in  Norfolk  Street.  When  the  English 
King  entered  the  room  selected  by  Peter  for  his  own  use, 
and  in  which  he  slept,  with  three  or  four  of  his  servants,  His 
Majesty  almost  fainted.  The  air  was  foul,  and  quite  un- 
breatheable  ;  in  spite  of  the  cold,  all  the  windows  had  to  be 
thrown  open.  Yet,  when  Peter  returned  William's  visit  at 
Kensington  Palace,  he  gave  proof  of  very  evident  progress, 

^  Dutch  State  Papers,  The  Hague.  See,  with  reference  to  Peter's  visit  tc 
Holland,  besides  the  authorities  already  quoted,  A.  lazykof,  Peter  the  Great  at 
Zaandam  ami  Annterdani  (Berlin,  1872). 


94  PETER  THE  GREAT 

in  many  social  matters.  He  had  a  long  conversation  in 
Dutch  with  the  Kini^,  he  was  assiduousK-  polite  to  Princess 
Anne,  the  heir  to  tlie  throne,  and  was  so  much  dcliL,ditcd 
with  her  conversation  that,  in  writing  to  one  of  his  friends, 
he  described  her  as  '  a  true  daughter  of  our  church.'  An 
apparatus  for  showing  the  direction  of  the  wind,  placed  in  the 
King's  cabinet,  interested  him  greatly,  but  he  only  cast  a 
careless  glance  on  the  marvels  of  art  which  filled  the  palace. 
His  visit  was,  on  the  whole,  a  failure,  the  impression  he  pro- 
duced being  far  from  favourable.  The  inhabitants  of  this 
home  of  culture,  and  refined  elegance,  were  more  difficult  to 
please  than  the  ladies  of  Koppenbriigge.  A  few  years  later, 
Burnet,  in  his  memoirs,  almost  seems  to  apologise  to  his 
readers,  for  speaking  of  so  sorry  a  personage.^  Was  such  a 
man  likely  to  be  fit  to  govern  a  great  empire?  The  Bishop 
doubts  it.  A  promising  shipwright  he  might  be.  He  had 
not  been  seen  to  interest  hfmself  in  any  other  matter,  and 
ever  in  that,  he  was  disposed  to  give  too  much  attention  to 
mer(;  detail.  Thus  does  the  great  Whig  historian  lay  his 
uneriing  finger  on  the  weak  points  of  a  marvellous  genius, 
without  ever  seeming  to  suspect  the  existence  of  those  powers, 
which,  in  a  future  page,  I  shall  endeavour  to  demonstrate,  l^ut 
these  written  impressions  cannot  have  been  absolutely  fresh, 
and  distance,  doubtless,  deceived  him  with  an  optical  illusion, 
analogous  to  that  the  effects  of  which  we  have  already  noticed 
in  Holland. 

Peter  remained  in  England  almost  as  long  as  he  had  tarried 
with  the  Dutch,  and  here,  too,  he  gave  his  mind  to  many 
things.  With  all  his  usual  curiosity,  minuteness,  and  practi- 
cal-mindedness,  he  made  the  tour  of  every  public  establish- 
ment likely  to  furnish  him  with  useful  information  for  his 
future  creations — the  Mint — the  Observatory — the  Royal 
Society.  Though  the  pictures  in  Kensington  Palace  did 
not  transport  him  with  admiration,  he  had  his  portrait 
painted  by  Kneller,  the  pupil  of  Rembrandt  and  of  Fer- 
dinand Bo\.  This  picture,  preserved  at  Hampton  Court,  is 
one  of  the  best  of  him  in  existence.  He  took  his  pleasure 
too,  giving  free  rein  to  his  five-and  twenty  years,  and  making 
practical  acquaintance  with  local  manners  and  customs. 
'J'he  servant-girl  of  the  Zaandam  inn  was  replaced  by  an 
actress,  Mrs.  Cross,  who,  so  it  would  appear,  had  reason  to 
'  Vol.  ii.  p.  221,  etc. 


THE  JOURNEY  95 

complain  of  the  Tsar's  stinginess  ;  but  he  sharply  reproved 
the  persons  who  ventured  to  lecture  him  on  this  subject,  '  I 
find  plenty  of  men  to  serve  me  well,  with  all  their  heart  and 
mind,  for  500  guineas.  This  person  has  only  served  me 
tolerably,  and  what  she  has  to  give  is  worth  much  less.'^ 
He  won  back  his  500  guineas,  over  a  match,  fought  in  the 
house  of  the  Duke  of  Leeds,  between  a  Grenadier  of  liis  own 
suite,  and  a  celebrated  native  boxer.  Six  weeks  out  of  the 
three  months  were  devoted  to  pursuing — at  Deptford,  a  village 
formerly  on  the  outskirts  of  the  capital,  now  merged  within 
it — those  studies  for  which  the  Amsterdam  shipyard  had  not 
sufficed  him.  Here  too  he  delighted  in  masquerading  as  a 
working  apprentice,  walking  through  the  streets  with  his 
hatchet  on  his  shoulder,  and  drinking  beer  and  smoking  a 
small  Dutch  pipe  in  a  tavern,  which,  until  the  year  1808, 
bore  the  name  of  the  Tsar's  Tavern,  and  showed  his  portrait 
on  its  signboard.  Behold  a  new  field  for  the  legend-mongers, 
who  did  not  fail  to  take  advantage  of  it !  Even  Burnet's 
usually  clear  vision  and  faithful  memory  were  thus  led 
astray.  But  there  is  no  uncertainty  as  to  the  residence 
occupied  by  Peter  at  Deptford.  Its  identity  has  been 
further  established  by  witnesses,  before  a  Court  of  Justice. 
When  the  owner,  John  Evelyn,  re-took  possessii^n  of  his 
dwelling,  which  he  had  given  up  temporarily  for  the  use  of 
the  Russian  Sovereign,  he  found  it  in  a  condition  which 
might  have  suggested  the  idea  that  Baty-Han  himself  had 
been  there.  Doors  and  windows  had  been  torn  out  and 
burnt,  hangings  dragged  down  and  soiled,  valuable  pictures 
utterly  ruined,  and  their  frames  smashed  to  pieces.  Evelyn 
claimed,  and  received,  reimbursement  of  his  loss  from  the 
public  Treasury.-  This  mansion.  Saves  Court,  though  half- 
ruined  at  the  present  day,  standing  in  the  middle  of  the 
docks,  and  used  as  a  police-barrack  and  counting-house, — is 
still  bound  up  with  the  memory  of  the  illustrious  guest  it 
once  sheltered.  The  street  by  which  it  is  approached  is  even 
now  called  Tsar's  Street. 

Peter  toiled  hard  at  Deptford,  under  the  direction  of  the 
famous  Anthony  Dean,  whose  father  had  made  himself 
unpopular  by  passing  over  into  France,  and  there  teaching 
the  art  of  shipbuilding.      In  a  letter  dated  March  4th,  1619, 

1  Nartof,  p.  g.     The  original  expression  is  even  coarser  yet. 
^  Shoubinski,  Hisloiical  Sketches  (St.  retersburg,  1893),  P-  }P- 


96  PETER  THE  GREAT 

refcninnr  to  some  excess  committed  at  Moscow  by  one  of  his 
provisional  rcpiesL-ntativcs,  while  in  a  state  of  intoxication, 
he  writes,  not  without  a  touch  of  melancholy  regret,  '  We 
run  no  risk  of  doing  anything  of  that  kind  here,  set'ing  wc 
arc  immersed  in  study  from  morning  till  night.'  But  even 
at  Deptford,  his  toil  as  an  apprentice  and  his  passion  for  all 
sea-faring  matters  did  not  completely  absorb  him.  As  in 
Ilollaiid,  his  interests  and  his  studies  took  every  possible 
direction.  He  kept  adding  recruits  to  the  body  of  his 
future  collaborators — workmen  and  overseers  for  his  mines 
in  the  Ural,  engineers  who  were  to  cut  a  canal  which  was  to 
join  the  Caspian  and  the  Black  Sea  by  the  Volga  and  the 
Don.  lie  and  Lord  Caermarthen  negotiated  the  concession 
of  the  Russian  tobacco  monopoly  to  a  group  of  English 
capitalists,  in  return  for  the  somewhat  modest  sum  of  4S,ooo 
roubles,  which  he  needed  to  balance  the  budget  of  his  Em- 
bassy, l^urnet  forgot  all  that.  Yet  legend  speaks  of  an 
uncut  diamond,  wrapped  in  a  scrap  of  dirty  paper, — the 
symbolic  gift  which  Peter  is  said  to  have  conferred  on  his 
royal  host  ere  he  departed.  But  at  Koenigsberg,  if  the 
story-tellers  are  to  be  believed,  he  tossed  a  huge  ruby  into 
the  bosom  of  the  Electress'  low-cut  gown,  as  he  sat  at  table 
with  her.^     Now  the  Electress  did  not  go  to  Koenigsberg ! 


IV 

By  the  end  of  April,  Peter  was  back  in  Holland,  and 
before  long  he  was  on  his  way  to  Vienna.  The  request 
for  aid  against  the  Turks,  addressed  to  the  States  General 
by  the  Embassy,  had  not  been  favourably  received.  The 
States  had  even  gone  so  far  as  to  suggest  to  the  King 
of  England  that  he  should  mediate  between  the  Ottoman 
Porte  and  Austria,  so  as  to  place  that  country  in  a  position 
to  turn  all  her  forces  against  France,  in  the  fresh  struggle 
which  was  so  evidently  approaching, — for  the  health  of 
Charles  II.  of  Spain  was  rapitily  declining.  This  blow  must 
be  parried.  Unfortunately,  the  movements  of  the  Russian 
monarch's  huge  Embassy   were    very   slow.     It   must  take 

^  Coxe's  Trar'f/s  (hnndon,  1.S74),  veil.  iv.  p.  87.      Niestroicf,  '  Peter  the  Circal's 
Visit  to  Holland  and  England,'  in  ilie  Messa^vr  Universe/,  1871. 


THE  JOURNEY  97 

tluee  weeks  to  reach  the  capital  of  the  Holy  Empire. 
According  to  German  official  sources,  its  retinue  was  thus 
composed  : — One  court  marshal,  one  equerry,  one  major- 
domo,  four  chamberlains,  four  dwarfs,  six  pa^es,  six  trum- 
peters, one  cup-bearer,  one  cook,  one  quarter-master,  twelve 
lacqueys,  six  coachmen  and  postillions,  twenty-four  serving- 
men,  thirty-two  footmen,  twenty-two  carriage  horses,  thirty- 
two  four-horsed  carriages,  and  four  six-horse  waggons  for 
the  baggage,  and  twelve  saddle-horses.^  Yet  Peter  pro- 
posed to  enter  Leopold's  capital  at  eleven  o'clock  at  night, 
and  in  the  fourth  coach,  so  as  to  pass  unnoticed.  At 
the  very  last  moment  the  plan  failed,  and  everything 
turned  out  ill  for  every  one.  The  Embassy,  with  its  end- 
less train  of  followers,  was  forced  to  kick  its  heels  one 
whole  long  day,  just  without  the  approaches  to  the  town. 
The  road  was  blocked  by  a  great  march-past  of  troops,  not 
to  be  interrupted  for  such  a  trifle.  Peter,  caring  nothing 
for  the  troops,  jumped  into  a  post-cart,  whh.  a  single 
servant,  and  pushed  forward.  Yet  the  incident  annoyed 
him  much,  and  gave  him  an  equal  sense  of  discomfort.  He 
was  sorely  put  out  of  countenance,  and  the  appearance  of 
the  Imperial  residence  only  deepened  the  impression.  The 
whole  place  awed  him,  with  its  air  of  implacable  pride, 
haughty  etiquette,  and  inaccessible  majesty.  Tlie  Imperial 
ministers,  already  deeply  engaged  with  Holland  and  with 
England,  sought  every  pretext  to  delay  the  audience 
solicited  by  his  Ambassadors.  He,  to  cut  things  short, 
demanded  a  personal  interview  with  the  Emperor,  and  met 
with  a  prompt  refusal.  By  what  right  ?  it  was  inquired. 
Here  was  Peter  Mihailof's  first  lesson  in  diplomacy.  He 
began  to  understand  the  inconvenience  of  disguises.  Three 
times  he  returned  to  the  charge.  At  last  the  Vice-Chan- 
cellor  of  Bohemia,  Czernini,  was  sent  to  him.  'What  do 
you  want?  '  'To  see  the  Emperor,  and  speak  with  him  on 
urgent  affairs.'  'What  affairs?  Are  the  Ambassadors  of 
your  country  not  here  to  see  to  them  ? '  The  poor  dis- 
guised Tsar  beat  a  hasty  retreat  ;  '  He  would  not  even 
mention  affairs,'  he  said. 

A   meeting  was  appointed  at  the  Favorita   Palace.     He 
was  to  enter  by  a  private  staircase,  a  small  si)iral  one  com- 

'  Weber,  Archiv  fiir  Slichsische  Geschichtc  (Leipzig,  1873),  vol.  xi.  p.  338. 


98  PETER  THE  C.REAT 

municatinc:^  with  the  Park.  He  agreed  to  evcrythiiif;:^.  Once 
in  tlic  iMiipcror  Leopold's  presence,  he  forgot  himself  so  far 
as  to  attcmi)t  to  kiss  his  hand.  He  evidently  felt  liimself 
very  small  and  inferior  ;  he  kept  putting  his  hat  on,  and 
l)ulling  it  off,  nervously,  and  could  not  make  up  his  mind  to 
keep  it  on  his  head,  in  spite  of  the  Emperor's  repeated 
requests  that  he  should  do  so.  The  interview,  which  lasted 
a  quarter  of  an  hour,  was  of  the  most  commonplace  descrij)- 
tion.  Lefort  interpreted,  for  Peter  did  not  dare  to  fall  back 
on  his  own  bad  German.  It  was  not  till  he  had  left  the 
Palace  that  he  regained  his  self-possession,  and  then,  in  an 
instant,  all  the  natural  and  exuberant  gaiety  of  the  man 
returned.  A  boat  lay  moored  on  a  little  pond  in  the  Park. 
He  rushed  to  it,  and  rowed  about  till  he  was  out  of  breath. 
He  was  like  any  school-boy,  just  escaped  from  the  trials  of 
a  difficult  e.vamination.^ 

But  the  interview  bore  no  fruit.  The  Emperor  was  quite 
resolved  to  respect  Peter  Mihailofs  incognito.  At  the  ban- 
quet which  followed  the  audience  at  last  granted  to  the 
Embassy,  the  young  Sovereign,  bitten  afresh  with  his  old 
mania,  insisted  on  standing  behind  Lefort's  chair.  He  was 
allowed  to  do  so  without  protest.  The  political  proposals 
he  had  come  to  make,  by  no  means  fell  in  with  the  decided 
intentions  of  the  Austrian  Court,  which  was  bent  on  having 
i:)cacc  with  the  Turks  at  any  price.  Yet  Peter  took  great 
pains  to  give  satisfaction  in  these  new  surroundings.  He 
was  much  more  circumspect  than  elsewhere.  He  paid  a 
\isit — at  the  Favorita,  again,  and  almost  secretly — to  the 
]"Lmpress  and  the  Imperial  Princesses,  and  did  his  best  to 
make  himself  pleasant.  He  even  ventured  .some  advances 
towards  the  dominant  Church,  and  went  so  far  as  to  rouse 
hopes  among  the  Catholics,  similar  to  those  he  had  already 
roused  amongst  the  Protestants.  On  St.  Peter's  Day  he  was 
l)resent,  with  his  whole  Embassy,  at  a  solemn  service  in  the 
Jesuit  Church,  where  he  listened  to  a  sermon  preached  in 
Slav  by  Father  Wolff,  and  heard  the  preacher  say  'that  the 
keys  would  be  bestowed  a  second  time,  upon  a  new  Peter, 
that  he  might  open  another  door'  He  composed,  and  lighted 
with  his  own  hands,  the  fireworks  which  formed  part  of  an 
entertainment  given,  that  same  day,  by  his  Ambassadors,  to 

'   Vienna  State  Papers,  Cercni)niall-Pr(jlocollc.     Compare  Ouslrialof,  vol.  iii. 
])p.  126,  127;  Shciner,'p.  372. 


THE  JOURNEY  .    99 

the  cream  of  Viennese  society,  and  which,  according  to  the 
Tsar's  testimony,  wound  up  in  very  much  the  same  fashion 
as  the  fetes  in  the  Sloboda.  According  to  one  of  his  letters 
to  Vinnius,  a  great  deal  of  wine  was  drunk,  and  there  was 
considerable  love-making  in  the  gardens.^  Shortly  afterwards, 
the  Emperor  invited  the  Ambassadors  to  a  masked  ball,  at 
which  Peter  wore  the  dress  of  a  Friesland  peasant.  The 
Emperor  and  Empress  appeared  as  the  host  and  hostess  of 
an  inn.  Innkeeping  {das  WirtJischaft)  was  as  much  in 
fashion,  at  that  moment,  as  shepherds  and  shepherdesses 
and  all  pastoral  matters  were  soon  to  be.  But  this  enter- 
tainment had  no  official  character  whatever.  At  supper 
Peter  sat  between  Freilin  von  Turn,  who  w^as  his  own 
pendant,  as  a  Friesland  peasant,  and  the  wife  of  Marshal 
von  Staremberg,  who  wore  a  Swabian  costume.  A  few  days 
later  the  Embassy  departed.  The  diplomatic  object  of  the 
journey  had  utterly  failed,  and  the  scientific  resources  of 
Vienna  had  been  no  compensation  for  Peter's  disappoint- 
ment in  this  respect.  He  desired  to  go  to  Venice,  there  to 
study  a  form  of  shipbuilding,  new  to  him  as  yet — those 
oared  galleys  which  were  to  play  such  a  great  part  in  the 
future  of  the  Russian  navy.  Just  as  the  travelling  prepara- 
tions were  completed,  the  Tsar  was  compelled  to  stop  short. 
Serious  news  had  arrived  from  Russia. 

'  The  seed  of  the  Miloslavski  has  sprouted  once  again.' 
Thus  he  picturesquely  describes  it.  There  was  a  fresh 
mutiny  amongst  the  Streltsy.  Tike  a  flash  his  mind  was 
made  up,  and  the  direction  of  his  journey  changed  from 
south  to  east.  A  few  days  later  he  was  at  Cracow.  '  You 
will  see  me  sooner  than  you  think  for,'  he  had  written  to 
Romodanovski,  whom  he  accused  of  weakness  and  pusil- 
lanimity. I^ut  more  reassuring  news  awaited  him  in  the 
old  Polish  capital  :  Shein,  his  generalissimo,  had  put  down 
the  rebels  ;  Moscow  was  safe.  He  slackened  his  pace  a 
little,  halted  at  Rawa,  and  there  spent  three  days  with 
Augustus  II.  The  history  of  this  meeting,  which  was  to 
give  birth  to  the  Northern  War,  belongs  to  another  chapter 
of  this  book.  As  far  as  Peter's  studies  are  concerned,  his 
journey  ended  at  Vienna.  Before  setting  forth  its  conse- 
quences, distant  and  immediate— the  creation,  in  other  words, 

^    Writings  and  Corj-es/'ondeme,  vol.  i.  p.  263. 


loo.  PETER  THE  GREAT 

on  the  confines  of  ancient  Europe,  of  a  new  power,  political, 
social,  and  economic,  and  the  transformation,  political,  social, 
and  economic  too,  of  a  certain  area  of  the  old  European 
continent — I  must  fully  describe  the  physical  traits  and 
mental  characteristics  of  the  man  who  was  to  be  the  in- 
strument to  perform  this  revolution.  Standing  on  the 
threshold  of  the  work,  I  must  endeavour  to  picture  forth 
its  maker. 


PART   II 

THE    MAN 


BOOK  I— BODY  AND  MIND 
CHAPTER    I 

PHYSICAL   PORTRAIT — CHARACTERISTIC   TRAITS 

I.  Pen  and  pencil  portraits — Kneller  and  Von  Moor — St.  Simon — Strength  Tin d 

nervousness — Twitcliings — Oddities  of  dress — The  lay  figure  in  the  Winter 
Palace — What  his  dress  really  was — Darned  stockings  and  cobbled  shoes 
— The  Doubina. 

II.  Temperament — The    delight    of  action — An  audience  at  4  o'clock  in    the 

morning — A  working  day  of  14  hours — Ubiquity  and  universality — states- 
man, drum-major,  dancing-master,  fireman,  major-domo,  physician — The 
Tsar  and  his  negro  boy — The  individual  and  the  race — Russian  indolence 
■ — Agreement  of  physical  and  moral  phenomena — Long  winters,  and  short- 
lived springs — Periods  of  inertia,  and  fits  of  feverish  activity — The  heroes 
of  the  National  Legend. 
III.  W\ns  Peter  brave? — Narva  and  Poltava — The  idea  of  duty — Contradictions — 
Moral  energy  and  weakness — Inconstancy  and  versatility  in  detail — 
Steadiness  and  perseverance  in  the  whole  undertaking— Peter's  impulsive- 
ness— Traits  of  the  national  character — Brain  and  heart — Want  of 
feeling— Cheery  and  sociable  disposition — Boyish  pranks — Why  he  was 
disliked — Frequent  fits  of  violence  and  rage — Sword  thrusts. 
IV.  Drinking  excesses — A  scene  of  bloodshed  in  the  Monastery  of  the  Basilian 
Fathers — The  Tsar  not  sober — Habitual  drunkenness — Its  results. 
V.  Coarse  pleasures — Banquets  and  orgies — Female  drunkards — A  regular 
tippler — Theological  controversies  at  table — Peter's  tastes  are  those  of  the 
public-house  and  the  servants'  hall — Was  he  cruel  ? — Judge  and  execu- 
tioner— Reasons  of  State  — Idealism  and  sensuality — The  bondage  of  the 
Law. 


The  picture  of  Peter,  painted  in  London  by  Sir  Godfrey 
Kneller,  in  1698,  shows  us  a  fine  young  fellow  of  gracious 
and  manly  presence.  The  features  are  refined  and  regular, 
the  expression  full  of  dignity  and  pride  ;  the  wide-open  eyes 
and  somewhat  full,  half-smiling,  lips,  are  instinct  with  beauty 
and  intelligence.  The  physical  mark  discreetly  indicated  on 
the  right  cheek — the  wart  of  the  description  sent  to  the 
Zaandam  workman — rouses  confidence  in  the  artist's  fidelity. 
8  103 


104  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Yet  this  same  fidelity  has  been  much  ch'sputed.  Not  to 
mention  the  hideous  waxen  figure  which  dishonours  the 
i^^allcry  of  the  Winter  Palace  at  St.  Petersburj^,  Leroi  and 
Caravaque,  as  also  Dannhauer,  and  even  Karl  Von  Moor — 
with  whose  work  I'eter  himself  was  so  well  pleased,  that  he 
sent  the  portrait  from  the  Mafrue  to  Paris,  in  1717,  to  have  it 
reproduced  at  the  Gobelins  Factory — were  all  of  them  far 
less  flattering.^  The  portraits  painted  on  the  spot,  and  at  the 
same  period  (1717)  by  Nattier  and  Rigaud,  pleased  the  Tsar 
less.  They  have  a  somewhat  arch  expression,  and  give 
nothing  of  that  fierce,  and  almost  savage  look  of  power, 
which  Moor  so  successfully  indicated. 

True  it  is,  indeed,  that  twenty  years — and  what  eventful 
ones ! — had  passed  over  the  Tsar,  between  the  date  of 
Kneller's  picture  and  that  of  Moor's.  But  Noomen  saw  the 
great  man  before  Kneller  met  him,  and  in  his  Journals,  I  find 
this  rough  and  evidently  frank  description  : — '  Tall  and 
robust,  of  ordinary  corpulence,  lively  and  quick  in  all  his 
movements,  the  face  round,  the  expression  rather  severe,  the 
eyebrows  dark,  like  the  short  curling  hair  .  .  .  he  walks  with 
long  steps,  swinging  his  arms,  grasping  a  new  hatchci  haft  in 
his  hand.'  The  vanished  hero  stands  before  us!  Again, 
about  the  same  period,  under  the  hand  of  Cardinal  Kollonitz, 
Primate  of  Hungary,  who  met  the  Tsar  at  Vienna  in  1698, 
and  was  rather  benevolently  inclined  towards  him  than 
otherwise — I  read  as  follows  : — '  Neither  in  his  person,  his 
aspect,  nor  his  manners,  is  there  anything  to  specially 
distinguish  him,  and  betra\'  his  princely  quality.'  ^  St.  Simon's 
portrait  is  well  known.  I  should  be  disposed  to  adopt  it,  as 
indicating  a  happy  medium — for  all  the  contemporary 
documents  on  which  I  have  been  able  to  lay  my  hand,  agree 
with  it  in  every  essential  point.  Here  are.  two,  deposited 
amongst  the  papers  of  the  French  Ministry  for  P'oreign 
Affairs,  during  the  Tsar's  residence  in  Paris  in  1717.  'His 
features  were  rather  handsome,  the\'  even  showed  a  certain 
gentleness,  and  no  one  would  have  thought,  on  looking  at 
him,  that  he  would  occasionally  take  to  cutting  off  the  heads 
of  those  of  his  subjects  who  displeased  him.     He  would  have 

'  K<i\'n\sV.\,  Dictionary  of  Eiifp-aved  Portraits,  Y).  1572.  The  whereabouts  of 
the  original  of  this  portrait  is  unknown. 

-  Tlieiner,  p.  372.  Compare  Ruzini's  Account  sent  from  Venice  to  Vienna; 
Pontes  rerum  Austriacaruni  (Vienna,  1S67),  Part  11.  vol.  xxvii.  p.  429. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     105 

been  a  very  well-built  prince,  but  that  he  carried  himself  so 
badly.  He  walked  with  round  shoulders,  worse  than  any 
Dutch  sailor,  whose  ways  he  seemed  to  cop)'.  He  had  large 
eyes,  a  good  nose  and  mouth,  a  pleasant  face,  though  some- 
what pale,  and  light  brown  hair  kept  rather  sliort.  He  made 
endless  grimaces.  One  of  his  comn^ionest  tricks  was  to  try 
to  look  at  his  sword  by  bending  his  head  backwards  over  his 
shoulder,  and  to  raise  one  of  his  legs  and  stretch  it  out 
behind  him.  He  sometimes  turned  his  head  as  if  he  desired 
to  bring  his  face  above  the  middle  of  his  shoulders.  Those 
who  waited  on  him  asserted  that  this  kind  of  convulsion 
always  came  upon  him  when  his  thoughts  were  very  earnestly 
fixed  on  any  special  subject.'^  And  again  'The  Tsar  is 
exceedingly  tall,  somewhat  bow'ed,  his  head  generally  bent 
down,  he  is  very  dark,  and  there  is  a  something  wiJd  in  his 
look.  His  mind  appears  bright,  and  his  understanding  very 
ready.  There  is  a  sort  of  grandeur  in  his  manners,  but  this 
is  not  always  kept  up.'^  The  disagreement  as  to  the  colour 
of  Peter's  hair  may  be  put  dow-n  to  the  fault  of  the  wig- 
makers,  he  having  adopted  the  style  of  hair-dressing  pecu- 
liar to  the  European  dress  of  that  date.  All  are  agreed  as  to 
his  grimaces,  and  nervous  trick-^,  the  perpetual  shaking  of  his 
head,  the  round-shoulderedness  which  struck  the  Emperor's 
Ministers  in  1698,  when  he  was  only  24,  and  the  fierce 
expression  of  his  eyes.  The  Archbishop  of  Novgorod, 
lanovski,  admitted  to  audience  to  kiss  the  hands  of  Ivan  and 
of  Peter,  when  the  two  brothers  shared  the  throne,  felt  no 
alarm  when  he  approached  the  elder  sovereign.  But  when 
he  met  the  younger  Tsar's  glance,  he  felt  his  knees  shake 
under  him,  and,  from  that  day  forward,  the  presentiment  that 
he  would  be  done  to  death  by  that  second  hand,  which  his 
trembling  lips  had  scarcely  touched,  was  always  wilh  him. 

'  It  is  well  known,'  says  Staehlin,  '  that  this  monarch,  from 
his  early  youth  until  his  death,  was  subject  to  short  but 
frequent  brain  attacks,  of  a  somewhat  violent  kind.  A  sort 
of  convulsion  seized  him,  which  for  a  certain  tiine,  and  some- 
times even  for  some  hours,  threw  him  into  such  a  distressing 
condition,  that  he  could  not  bear  the  sight  of  any  one,  not 
even  his  nearest  friends.     This  parox}-sm  was  always  pre- 

^  Mimoires  et  Documents  (Russie),  vol.  ii.  p.  117. 

^  Despatch  from  M.  de  Liboy-sent  to  Dunkirk  to  receive  the  Tsar,  April 


io6  PETER  THE  C.REAT 

ceded  by  a  stronc^  contortion  of  the  neck  towards  the  left 
side,  ami  by  a  violent  contraction  of  the  muscles  of  the 
face.' ^  Hence  arose,  doubtless,  Teter's  perpetual  recourse  to 
remedies,  some  of  them  occasionally  very  strange,  as  for 
instance,  a  certain  powder,  compounded  of  the  interior  and 
the  winj^s  of  a  magpie.-  I  lence  too,  his  habit  of  sleeping  with 
his  two  hands  clasping  the  shoulders  of  an  orderly  officer.^ 
Some  people  have  tried  to  believe  this  last  fact  to  have  given 
rise  to  the  malevolent  suppositions  which  have  hovered  round 
the  private  morals  of  this  sovereign.  But  this  explana- 
tion is,  unfortunately,  far  from  being  sufficient.  In  1718, 
while  at  table  with  the  Queen  of  Prussia,  Peter  began  to 
wave  one  of  his  hands — that  holding  his  knife — in  so  violent 
a  fashion,  that  Sophia  Charlotte  took  fright  and  would  have 
left  her  seat.  He,  to  reassure  her,  seized  her  arm,  but 
squeezed  it  so  tightly,  that  she  cried  out.  He  shrugged  his 
shoulders.  '  Catherine's  bones  are  not  so  tender ! '  he  was 
heard  to  remark  aloud.* 

These  traits  of  nervous  delicacy  had  already  appeared  in 
the  case  of  Ivan  the  Terrible, and  probably  arose  from  the  same 
cause — the  excess  and  violence  of  the  shocks  undergone  in 
infancy  and  childhood.  It  was  the  legacy  of  old  Russia — re- 
presented by  the  Streltsy,  and  doomed  to  death  already — to 
her  great  Reformer.  But  with  the  poison,  happily,she  bestowed 
the  antidote — that  mighty  work  which  was  to  purify  his  blood 
and  invigorate  his  nerves.     Ivan  had  no  such  good  fortune. 

To  sum  it  up,  Peter  may  be  described,  physically,  as  a  fine 
man,  exceedingly  tall  (hi^  exact  height  was  6  ft.  8i  in.),''  dark 
— 'extremely  dark,  as  if  he  had  been  born  in  Africa,'  says 
one  of  his  contemporaries^ — powerful  in  frame,  with  a  good 
deal  of  majesty  about  him,  marred  by  certain  faults  of 
deportment,  and  a  painful  infirmit}',  which  spoilt  the  general 
effect.  He  dressed  carelessly,  put  on  his  clothes  awry, 
frequently  appeared  in  a  most  untidy  condition,  was  always 
changing  his  garments,  military  or  civil,  and  would  occasion- 
ally select  a  garb  of  the  most  grotesque  description.     He  had 

1  ^M^(-</fto  (Richou's  translation,  Str.aslnirg,  17S7),  p.  80. 
'  Scherer's  Anecdotes  (Paris,  1792),  vol.  ii.  p.  82. 
'  Narlof.  p.  29. 

*  Memoirs  of  the  Marp-avine  of  Bairettth. 

"  Two  Arcliines,  and  fourteen  \'erchoks,  Golikof,  History  of  Peter  the  Great 
(Mi)scf)\v,  1842),  vol.  X.  p.  170. 

•  Louville's  i1/(f/;/<7//-J  (Paris,  1818),  vol.  ii.  ]i.  239. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     107 

no  sense  whatever  of  propriety  in  dress.  He  showed  himself 
to  the  Danes,  at  Copenhagen,  in  17 16,  with  a  green  cap  on 
his  head,  a  black  military  cravat  tightly  buckled  round  his 
neck,  and  his  shirt  collar  fastened  by  a  big  silver  button,  set 
with  mock  stones,  such  as  his  own  officers  were  in  the  habit 
of  wearing.  A  brown  overcoat  with  horn  buttons,  coarse 
worsted  stockings,  full  of  darns,  and  very  dirty  shoes,  com 
pleted  his  costume.^  He  agreed  to  wear  a  wig,  but  insisted 
on  its  being  very  short,  so  that  he  might  be  able  to  thrust  it 
into  his  pocket ;  and  his  own  hair,  which  he  rarely  cut, 
showed  far  below  it. 

His  hair  grew  naturally  very  long  and  thick.  In  1722, 
during  his  Persian  Campaign,  being  inconvenienced  by  its 
quantity,  he  had  it  cut,  but,  being  very  economical  in  mind, 
he  insisted  on  having  a  new  wig  made  out  of  it,  which  wig 
now  figures  on  the  lay  figure  in  the  Winter  Palace.  It  is 
indeed  the  only  genuine  thing  about  that  figure  ;  the  waxen 
face,  with  its  glass  eyes,  was  modelled  on  a  cast  taken  after 
death,  and  the  weight  of  the  plaster  on  the  decomposing 
flesh  threw  all  proportions  out.  Peter's  cheeks  were 
naturally  full  and  round.  He  never  wore  the  coat  of  pale 
blue  gros  de  Tours,  silver-trimmed,  nor  the  sword-belt 
embroidered  to  match,  and  the  silver-clocked  poppy-coloured 
stockings,  in  which  the  figure  is  dressed  up,  but  once  in  all 
his  life.  That  was  at  Moscow,  in  1724,  on  the  day  of 
Catherine's  Coronation.  She  had  worked  with  her  own  hands 
on  the  splendid  garment,  and  he  consented  to  wear  it  for 
the  occasion.  But  he  kept  to  his  old  cobbled  shoes.  Ihe 
rest  of  his  authentic  and  everyday  garments  are  placed  in 
two  wardrobes  which  surround  the  throne — itself  a  mock 
one,  on  which  the  lay  figure  is  seated.  There  is  a  thick  cloth 
cloak,  worn  threadbare,  a  hat  devoid  of  lace,  pierced  by  a 
bullet  at  Poltava,  and  some  grey  woollen  stockings,  full  of 
darns.  In  the  corner  stands  the  famous  doubina,  a  fairly 
thick  ivory-headed  rattan  cane,  with  which  we  shall  make 
closer  acquaintance. 

The  sovereign's  intimate  circle  frequently  saw  him  in  his 
shirt-sleeves,  for,  even  at  table,  he  never  scrupled  to  take  off 
his  coat  if  he  was  too  hot.  Restraint,  of  any  kind,  he  never 
would  endure. 

^  Luntlhlad,    Life    of    Charles    XII.    (Gorman    Traiislaliun,    Jciisscn  Tucb, 
Hamburg,  1S37),  vol.  i.  p.  S6. 


io8  PETER  THE  GREAT 


II 

*  Tlie  soul's  joy  lies  in  doing.'  The  greatest  of  northern 
poets  was  swift  to  recognise  the  hero  of  that  might}'  scries 
of  brilUant  exploits,  the  image  of  which  I  would  fain  evoke, 
and  has  summed  him  up — his  temperament,  his  character, 
and  almost  ail  his  genius — in  those  few  words.  As  Posselt 
says,  'In  Thatcndrangc  ivar  scin  waJircs  Genie': — Yes;  his 
strength,  his  greatness,  and  his  ultimate  success,  were  all 
of  them  due  to  that  \it.d  energy  which  made  him,  both 
physically  and  morally,  the  mo.st  turbulent  man,  the  most 
indifferent  to  fatigue,  the  most  intensely  sensible  of  the  j'iry' 
of  action,  whom  the  world  has  ever  seen.  Nothing  more 
natural  than  that  the  legends  should  have  described  him  as 
a  supposititious  child,  the  son  of  foreign  parents.  His  whole 
nature  appears  utterly  at  variance  with  the  surroundings 
into  which  he  was  born.  He  has  no  prejudices,  and  his 
Russian  subjects  brim  over  with  them.  They  are  fanatics  in 
their  own  religion  ;  he  is  almost  a  Free-thinker.  They  look 
askance  at  every  novelty  ;  he  is  never  weary  of  innova- 
tions. They  are  fatalists;  he,  an  originating  force.  They 
worship  form  and  ceremony  ;  he  views  all  such  things  with 
an  almost  cynical  scorn.  Finally,  and  above  all,  they  are 
indolent,  lazy,  emotionless, — frozen,  as  it  were,  into  a  per- 
petual winter,  or  slumbering  in  some  everlasting  dream. 
He,  driven  by  the  feverish  love  of  movement  and  of  labour, 
which  I  have  already  described,  wakes  them  roughly  from 
their  torpor,  and  their  sluggish  inactivit}',  with  downright 
blows,  failing  on  them  with  sticks,  and,  not  unfrequently, 
with  axes.  It  would  be  interesting  to  follow  his  perpetual 
comings  and  goings,  even  during  the  space  of  a  few  months. 
Cast  a  mere  glance  over  the  list  of  his  correspondence  with 
Catherine — some  223  letters,  published,  in  i86i,bythe  Minis- 
try f'lr  Foreign  Affairs.  The  various  dates — from  Lemberg 
in  Galicia,  from  Marienwerder  in  Prussia,  from  Tsaritsin  on 
tlie  Volga, — in  the  south  of  his  cin[)ire,  from  Vologda,  in  the 
north,  from  Berlin,  Paris,  Copenhagen — make  the  brain  reel. 
One  moment  he  is  in  the  depths  of  Finland  inspecting 
forests  ;  then  again  in  the  Ural  inspecting  mines.  Soon  he 
is  in  Pomerania,  taking  part  in  a  siege  ;  in  the  Ukraine, 
where  he  is   occupied   in    breeding    sheep  ;   at    the  brilliant 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     109 

Court  of  some  German  prince,  where  he  acts  as  his  own 
Ambassador  ;  and  then,  suddenly,  in  the  Bohemian  moun- 
tains, where  he  enacts  the  part  of  a  private  tourist.  On  the 
6th  of  July,  17 1 5,  I  find  him  at  St.  Petersburg-,  about  to  put 
to  sea  with  his  fleet.  On  the  9th  he  is  back  again  in  his 
capital,  sending  the  Montenegrins  a  consolatory  letter  con- 
cerning the  excesses  committed  on  them  by  the  Turks, 
signing  a  convention  with  the  Prussian  Minister,  and  giving 
Menshikof  instructions  as  to  the  preservation  of  the  tmiber 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  town.  On  the  12th  he  is  at 
Revel  :  on  the  20th  he  has  rejoined  his  fleet  at  Kronstadt, 
and  has  forthwith  embarked  with  it.^  And  so  on,  year  in 
and  year  out,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  life.  He 
is  always  in  a  hurry:  he  makes  his  coachman  drive  full 
gallop  ;  when  he  is  on  foot  he  never  walks — he  runs. 

When  did  he  take  his  rest,  then  ?  It  is  not  easy  to  con- 
ceive. He  would  sit  far  into  the  night,  glass  in  hand,  but 
even  then  he  was  discussing,  holding  forth,  trying  his  guests 
sorely,  from  time  to  time,  with  his  sudden  changes  from 
gaiety  to  ill-humour,  his  sallies,  his  ill-bred  jokes,  and  fits  of 
fuiy  ;  and  he  would  give  audiences  at  four  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  This  was  the  hour  for  which  he  summoned  his 
two  Ambassadors,  Ostermann  and  Boutourlin,  before  send- 
ing them  to  Stockholm,  after  the  conclusion  of  peace  with 
Sweden,  in  172 1.  He  received  them,  garbed  in  a  short 
dressing-gown,  below  which  his  bare  legs  were  exposed,  a 
thick  nightcap,  lined  with  linen,  on  his  head — for  he  per- 
spired violently  —  and  his  stockings  dropped  down  over 
his  slippers.  According  to  his  orderly  officer,  he  had  been 
walking  about  for  a  considerable  time,  awaiting  the  arrival 
of  the  two  gentlemen.  Forthwith  he  fell  upon  them,  ques- 
tioned them  closely,  and  in  every  direction,  to  make  sure 
they  thoroughly  knew  what  they  were  about,  and  then,  having 
dismissed  them,  dressed  hastily,  swallowed  a  glass  of  vodka 
(Russian  brandy),  and  hurried  off  to  his  dock)'ards.- 

P'ven  the  pleasures  he  permitted  himself — banquets,  illumi- 
nations, masquerades — imposed  extra  labour  on  him  ;  he 
took  more  pains  than  actual  relaxation,  letting  off  his  own 
fireworks,  directing  the  order  of  processions,  beating  the  big 
drum — for  he  was  drum-major  among  other  things — and 
leading  the  dances,  for  he  had  made  a  study  of  the  chore- 

^  Golikof,  vol.  vi.  pp.  33,  35,  321.  -  Scheier,  vol.  iii.  p.  267. 


no  PETER  THE  GREAT 

graphic  art.  In  1722  at  Moscow,  at  the  weddings  of  Count 
Golovin  with  the  daughter  of  Prince  Romodanovski,  he 
performed  the  duties  of  the  house-steward.  The  heat 
having  become  oppressive,  he  had  the  nece-^sary  tools  for 
opening  a  window  brought  to  him,  and  thus  employed  him- 
self for  half  an  hour.  He  went  about  gravely,  carr}'ing  the 
staff,  which  was  his  sign  of  of?ice,  pirouetted  before  the 
bride,  remained  standing  during  the  feast,  directing  the 
waiting,  and  ate  nothing  himself  until  all  was  over.^  He 
gave  personal  and  active  attention  to  the  treatment  of  his 
negro  page,  who  suffered  from  t;enia.^ 

But  indeed  his  favourite  occupation,  even  in  his  hours  of 
recreation,  was  v/ork,  perpetual  work.  Thus  he  engraved 
on  copper,  and  turned  in  ivory.  In  May  171 1,  the  French 
envoy  Baluze,  to  whom  he  had  granted  audience  at  Jaworow, 
in  Poland,  found  him  in  the  garden,  in  the  company  of  a 
fair  lad\'.  He  was  pushing  his  suit  wMth  a  charming  Pole, 
Madame  Sieniawska,  and  meanwhile,  saw  and  plane  in  hand, 
he  was  busily  engaged  in  building  a  boat  I  ^ 

Nothing  but  illness,  and  consequent  sheer  inability  to 
move,  would  induce  him  to  cease,  or  even  diminish,  this  wild 
expenditure  of  strength.  And  if  this  did  occur,  he  was  full 
of  distress  and  regret,  showering  apologies  on  those  who 
worked  under  him.  '  Let  them  not,'  so  he  writes,  'fancy  he 
was  idle  ;  he  was  really  incapable  of  moving,  quite  worn 
out.'  And  even  while  complaining  and  chafing  against  this 
condition  of  enforced  inaction, — as,  for  example,  in  1708, 
during  a  violent  attack  of  scorbutic  fever, — he  would  per- 
sonally direct  the  repression  of  a  Cossack  revolt  on  the  Don, 
the  victualling  of  his  armies,  the  building  operations  of 
various  kinds  already  begun  in  his  capital,  and  a  mass  of 
other  details  of  every  kind.^ 

Not  one  escapes  him.  At  Arcliangel,  on  the  Dvina,  he 
takes  it  into  his  head  to  inspect  every  one  of  the  boats 
which  carry  the  rustic  pottery,  made  in  the  nei<^hbourhood, 
to  the  market.  So  vigorously  does  he  set  about  it,  that  he 
ends  by  tumbling  into  the  hold  of  one  vessel,  and  smashing 

'  Bcrj^holz's  Journal,  Bi'(Sihiiir:^s-Mai:;azi}iy  vol.  xx.  p.  462;  Hynerof,  The 
Countess  Goloz<kin  (St.  Petcrshiirj;,  1S67),  p.  102,  etc. 

'■'  For  this  ancc(i"te,  with  its  coarse  ilelails,  see  I'oushkin's  Works,  1878 
edition,  vol.  V.  p.  27.S. 

'  Dcsi  aicli  from  IJaliize  to  the  King,  May  12,  1711,  French  Foreign  OfTice. 

*  Golikof,  vol.  iii.  p.  301. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     in 

a  whole  cargo  of  the  fragile  ware.^  In  January,  1722,  at 
Moscow,  after  a  night  in  carnival  time,  spent  in  driving  from 
house  to  house  in  his  sledge,  singing  carols  after  the  manner 
of  his  country,  and  gathering  a  harvest  of  small  coins,  besides 
swallowing  nuinerous  glasses  of  wine,  beer,  and  vodka,  he 
hears,  early  in  the  morning,  that  a  fire  has  broken  out  in  a 
distant  quarter.  Thither  he  flies  at  once,  and  for  two  whole 
hours  does  fireman's  duty  ;  after  which  he  mounts  his  sledge 
again,  and  is  seen  tearing  along  as  if  he  really  desired  to 
break  his  horses  down.  Be  it  remarked  that  he  is  occupied, 
at  that  same  moment,  with  a  serious  change  in  the  higher 
administration  of  his  empire.  He  is  about  to  break  up  his 
'council  of  revision,'  the  duties  of  which  are  to  be  trans- 
ferred to  the  Senate,  besides  which,  he  must  shortly  give 
orders  concerning  the  funeral  of  a  regimental  major.- 

In  1721,  when  he  undertook  the  work  of  drawing  up  his 
Navy  Regulations,  he  laid  out  a  plan  for  the  emploj-ment 
of  his  time,  to  which  he  closely  adhered.  According  to  his 
Journal,  he  wrote,  during  four  days  of  the  week,  for  fourteen 
hours  a  day, — from  five  in  the  morning  till  noon,  and  from 
four  in  the  afternoon  till  eleven  at  night.  This  lasted  from 
January  to  December  1721.^  The  MS.  of  these  Regula- 
tions, entirely  in  his  hand,  and  full  of  corrections,  is  now 
amongst  the  Moscow  archives.  These  also  contain  rough 
copies,  written  by  the  Tsar,  which  prove  that  a  great  number 
of  the  diplomatic  documents  respecting  the  Northern  war, 
signed  by  the  Chancellor  Golovin,  were  directly  inspired, 
and  originally  written,  by  his  master.  And  the  same 
may  be  said  of  the  majority  of  the  memorandums  and 
important  despatches  signed  by  his  ordinary  political  col- 
laborators, Golovin,  Sheremetief,  and  General  Weyde,  and 
yet  more  so  in  regard  to  the  legislative  and  administrative 
work  of  his  whole  reign — the  creation  of  the  army  and 
the  fleet,  the  development  of  commerce  and  industry,  the 
establishment  of  mills  and  factories,  the  organisation  of 
justice,  the  repression  of  official  corruption,  the  constitution 
of  the  national  economy.  lie  wrote  all  minutes,  often 
several   times  over,   drew    up    all    schemes,  and    frequently 

*  Staehlin's  Anecdotes,  ]■>.  i  lo. 

"  Beigholz's  yi;«r«a/,   Jhischings-Magazitt,  vol.    xx.   p.    360;     ll'ritins^^s  and 
Correspondence,  vol.  i.  ]).  811. 

^  (iulikof,  vol.  ix.  p.  27,  , 


112  PETER  THE  GREAT 

several  editions  of  the  same  scliemc  This  did  not  prevent 
him  from  attendintj  to  all  the  details  of  the  manai^ement  of 
his  own  house,  and  even  of  the  houses  of  his  kinsfolk  :  as 
wiic.n,  for  example,  he  fixed  the  quantity  and  quality  of 
the  brandy  to  be  supplied  to  his  sister-in-law,  the  Tsarina 
Prascovia.^ 

And  yet  in  spite,  and  even  because  of  it  all,  he  was 
the  true  son  of  his  country  and  of  his  race,  and  I,  for  my 
part,  would  readily  stake  my  reputation  on  my  certainty 
of  his  Russian  ori^^in.  He  corresponded  to  a  certain  phase 
of  the  national  life,  which  clearly  seems  to  betray  the  in- 
fluence of  the  special  conditions  of  physical  existence  in  these 
latitudes.  In  Russia,  after  long  and  cruel  winters,  there 
come  late  and  sudden  springs,  which  instantly  cover  the 
waking  earth  with  verdure,  in  a  sudden  explosion,  as  it  were, 
of  vernal  forces.  The  same  springtime  awakenings,  the  same 
rushes  of  energetic  growth,  stir  the  souls  of  the  men  who 
inhabit  these  countries.  The  length  and  rigour  of  the  winter 
season,  which  condemns  them  to  a  certain  slothfulness  of 
existence,  make  them  indolent,  without,  as  in  hot  Eastern 
countries,  making  them  effeminate.  Mind  and  spirit  are 
braced,  rather,  by  the  enforced  struggle  with  inclement  and 
ungrateful  nature.  When  the  sun  returns,  the  swiftly  work- 
ing elements  must  be  swiftly  followed,  so  as  to  crowd  the 
work  of  several  months  into  the  space  of  a  few  weeks.  This 
fact  brings  forth  special  physical  and  moral  habits, — special 
aptitudes  too  ;  and  of  these  habits  and  aptitudes  Peter  is 
simply  a  particularly  powerful  expression.  Such  exceptional 
extremes  as  he  may  betray  in  these  respects  are  doubtless  the 
survival  of  the  savage  elementary  forces,  peculiar  to  the  epic 
heroes  of  the  Russian  legend, — superhuman  giants  all,  who 
bore  the  heavy  burden  of  an  excess  of  vigour  they  could  not 
use, — wearied  out  by  their  own  strength  ! 

Peter,  when  he  passes  out  of  our  sight,  will  leave  the 
Raskolniks,  who  seek  to  relieve  themselves  of  the  same 
burden  by  galloping  to  and  fro,  on  January  nights,  barefoot 
and  in  their  shirts,  and  rolling  in  the  snow.- 

'  Siemievski,  The  Tsarina  Prascovia  {St.  Petersburg,  1S83),  note  to  p.  58. 
*  Solovief,  History  of  Russia,  vol.  xiii.  p.  166,  etc. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     113 


III 

Did  Peter's  energy,  and  his  enterprising — nay,  his  extra- 
ordinarily venturesome — genius,  equal  his  courage? 

He  never  sought  danger,  like  his  great  Swedish  adversary, 
— never  found  pleasure  in  it.  In  his  earlier  days,  he  gives  us 
the  impression  of  being  a  downright  coward.  My  readers 
will  not  have  forgotten  his  precipitate  flight,  on  the  nighc 
of  August  6th,  1689,  and  his  far  from  heroic  appearance 
at  the  Troitsa.  The  same  thing  came  to  pass  in  1700, 
under  the  walls  of  Narva  : — In  spite  of  the  most  ingenious 
explanations  and  apologies,  the  hideous  fact  remains.  At 
the  news  of  the  unexpected  approach  of  the  King  of  Sweden, 
the  Tsar  left  his  army,  made  over  the  command  to  an  as  yet 
untried,  and  newly-enlisted  Chief,  to  whom  he  gave  written 
instructions,  which  bore  traces,  according  to  all  competent 
judges,  not  of  ignorance  only,  but  of  the  greatest  perturbation 
of  mind.  '  He  is  no  soldier,'  was  the  outspoken  comment  of 
the  Saxon  General  Hallart,  who  saw  him  on  this  occasion, 
in  the  tent  of  the  new  Commander-in-Chief,  the  Prince  de 
Croy,  scared  out  of  his  wits,  and  half  distracted,  making  loud 
laments,  and  drinking  bumper  after  bumper  of  brandy  to 
pull  himself  together, — forgetting  to  date  his  written  orders, 
or  to  have  his  official  seal  affixed  to  them.^  Peter,  in  his  own 
journal,  has  given  us  to  understand  that  he  was  unaware 
of  Charles  Xll.'s  rapid  march,  and  this  flagrant  falsehood 
amounts  to  an  acknowledgment  of  his  weakness. 

Yet,  he  did  his  duty  bravely  at  Poltava,  exposing  his 
pcr-,on  in  the  hottest  of  the  struggle.-  To  this  he  made  up 
his  mind  beforehand,  as  to  any  other  trying  and  painful 
experience,  showing  no  eagerness,  but  yet  betraying  no 
weakness,  coldly,  almost  mournfully.  There  was  nothing  of 
the  paladin  about  him,  not  a  spark  of  the  spirit  of  chivalry  ; 
and,  in  that  point  also,  he  was  essentially  Russian.  Ill,  and 
confined  to  his  bed,  early  in  that  same  year,  he  wTote  to 
Mcnshikof,  in  a  somewhat  melancholy  strain,  desiring  to  be 

^  Documents  published  by  Herrmann,  in  his  History  of  Russia,  vol.  iv.  p.  116  ; 
Vockerodt's  Journal,  puljlished  by  Herrmann,  Kussland  unter  Peter  d.  G. 
{1872),  p.  42  ;  and  Kelch,  Liefldndische  Ceschichte  (1S75),  vol.  ii.  p.  156.  All 
agree  on  this  head. 

-  This  is  acknowledged  even  by  Swedish  historians.  See  Lundblad,  vol.  ii. 
p.  141. 


114  I'ETER  THE  GREAT 

warned  whenever  there  was  any  certainty  of  a  decisive  action, 
for  he  'could  not  expect,'  he  said,  'to  escape  that  sort  of 
affair.'  His  mind  once  made  up,  all  the  risks  of  the 
adventure,  personal  and  other,  seem  equalised  in  his  mind. 
Me  calculated  them  all,  with  the  same  composure,  and 
accepted  whatever  came,  with  the  same  calmness  of  mind. 
When,  in  17 13,  Vice-Admiral  Cruys,  desirinij^  to  prevent  the 
Sovereign  from  exposing  his  person  in  a  dangerous  cruise, 
referred  to  recent  catastroplics,  and  instanced  the  story  of  a 
Swedish  Admiral  who  had  been  blown  up  with  his  ship, 
Peter  wrote  on  the  margin  of  his  report,  '  The  okolnitchyi 
Zassiekin  strangled  himself  with  a  pig's  ear  ...  I  neither 
advise  nor  order  any  one  to  run  into  danger  ;  but  to  accept 
money,  and  then  not  to  give  service,  is  a  shameful  action.' 
The  idea  of  service  owed,  of  duty,  was  alwa\'s  before  him, 
like  a  landmark, — beckoning  him  to  climb  the  steep  and 
rugged  slope  of  virile  virtue,  and  heroic  sacrifice.  But  his 
progress  towards  the  summit  was  always  slow.  This  man, 
who  proved  himself,  in  the  end,  one  of  the  most  intrepid,  the 
most  resolute,  and  the  most  stubborn  in  the  world,  was  also, 
at  certain  moments,  one  of  the  most  easily  discouraged, 
and,  on  some  critical  occasions,  one  of  the  most  chicken- 
hearted.  Napoleon, — another  great  man,  compact  of  nerves, 
— was  subject,  in  moments  of  failure,  to  the  same  sudden  and 
passing  fits  of  weakness,  and  the  same  quick  revulsions  of 
spirit,  which  brought  him  back,  like  a  flash,  to  self-possession, 
and  to  the  power  of  using  his  faculties  and  resources,  still  all 
aflame  with  excitement,  and  thus  multiplied  tenfold.  But, 
in  Peter's  case,  the  proportions  of  the  phenomenon  were  far 
more  marked.  When  he  heard  of  the  defeat  of  his  army 
under  the  walls  of  Narva,  he  disguised  himself  as  a  peasant, 
so  as  the  more  easily  to  escape  from  the  enemy,  which  he 
fancied  already  on  his  heels.  He  shed  floods  of  tears,  and 
fell  into  such  a  prostrate  condition,  that  no  one  dared  mention 
military  matters  to  him.  He  was  ready  to  submit  to  any 
conditions  of  peace,  even  the  most  humiliating.^  Two  years 
later,  he  was  before  Noteburg,  a  paltry  town  to  which  he 
had  laid  siege  with  his  whole  army.  An  assault,  led  by  him- 
self in  person,  not  being  so  successful,  at  the  outset,  as  he 

'  Vockerodt,  who  describes  this  scene,  may  have  exaggerated,  but  tlie  multi- 
plicity of  analogous  traits  in  c.\i-;tcncc  woul.I  appear  to  mc  conclusive  in  his 
favour. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     115 

had  hoped,  he  hastily  gave  orders  to  retreat.  '  Tell  the  Tsar,' 
replied  Michael  Galitzin,  a  Lieutenant-Colonel  in  command 
of  a  detachment  of  the  Sieniionovski,  *  that  at  this  moment 
I  belong  to  Peter  no  longer,  but  to  God!'  According  to 
some  other  witnesses,  the  Tsar's  order  was  never  delivered  ; 
but  with  it  or  without  it,  and,  it  may  even  be,  without  having 
dropped  the  heroic  sentence  enshrined  in  legend,  Galitzin 
continued  the  attack,  and  carried  the  place.^ 

To  a  much  later  date,  and  even  after  Poltava,  Peter  was 
unchanged,  in  this  respect.  The  occurrence  on  the  Pruth,  to 
which  I  shall  later  have  to  refer,  proves  it.  He  was  an 
almost  parodoxical  mixture  of  strength  and  weakness,  in 
which  the  conflict  of  contradictory  constituent  elements  may 
be  clearly  traced.  Unflinching  in  his  attachment  to  the 
great  lines  of  a  life  and  work,  which,  for  unity  and  con- 
sistency, form  one  of  the  marvels  of  history,  he  was 
inconstancy  and  versatility  personified,  in  all  matters  of 
detail.  His  ideas  and  resolutions,  like  his  temper,  changed 
suddenly,  like  a  gust  of  wind.  He  was  essentially  a  man  of 
impulse.  During  his  French  journey,  in  17 17,  a  chorus 
of  complaint  rose  from  all  those  who  had  dealings  with  him, 
concerning  his  perpetual  change  of  plans.  No  one  ever 
knew  what  he  might  take  it  into  his  head  to  do  on  the 
morrow,  or  even  within  the  next  hour, — whither  he  might 
choose  to  go, — and  how  to  travel.  Nowhere  could  the 
length  of  his  stay  be  reckoned  on,  never  could  the  pro- 
gramme be  laid  out  in  advance,  even  for  a  single  day.  This 
quality  is  eminently  characteristic  of  the  Slavonic  race,  that 
most  composite  product  of  different  and  various  origins, 
cultures,  and  influences,  both  European  and  Asiatic.  To 
these,  perhaps,  it  partly  owes  that  power  of  resistance  and 
extraordinary  grit,  of  which  it  has  given  proof  in  under- 
takings which  have  necessarily  been  of  considerable  duration. 
The  frequent  relaxing  of  the  spring  relieves  it,  and  prevents- 
its  wearing  out.  But  this  mixture  of  suppleness  and  rigidity 
may  also  exist  as  an  individual  characteristic.  It  has  been 
very  evident  in  the  case  of  some  historical  imitators  of  the 
great  Reformer,  and  would  almost  seem  destined  by  Provi- 
dence, as  a  means  of  husbanding  their  strength.  It  rendered 
Peter  admirable  service,  even  in  matters  involving  most 
important   interests.      The   facility   with   which   he   would 

'   Oubtrialof,  vol.  iv.  pp.  197-202. 


Ii6  PETER  THE  GREAT 

chancre  front, — turninrj  his  back  on  Turkey,  to  face  Sweden, 
— abaiuloning  his  projects  in  the  Sea  of  Azof,  to  turn  his 
mind  towards  the  Baltic, — but  throwing  himself,  alwa\'s  and 
everywhere,  thoroutjhly  into  the  matter  in  hand,  without 
ever  dispersing  his  efforts, — ccrtainl)' proceeded  from  it.  So, 
too,  did  the  very  great  facility  with  which — in  matters  of 
detail — he  would  acknowledge  a  personal  error  of  judgment, 
or  fault  in  practice.  When,  in  1722,  he  revoked  the  Ukase 
by  which  he  had  introduced  the  Presidents  of  the  Adminis- 
trative Bodies  into  the  Senate,  which  was  a  legislative 
asscmbix',  he  unaffectedly  described  it  as  'an  ill-considered 
measure.'  This  did  not  prevent  him,  on  other  occasions, 
from  holding  out  against  wind  and  tide,  against  all  other 
opinions,  and  all  extraneous  influences.  No  man  ever  knew 
better  what  he  wanted,  and  how  to  have  it  done.  The 
inscri[)tion  ' Facta puto  qiiiecumqiie  jiibco  '  which  some  student' 
of  0\'id  placed  on  one  of  the  medals  struck  in  commemora- 
tion of  the  great  events  of  this  reign,  was  the  most  appropriate 
motto  the  Tsar  could  have  chosen. 

It  should  be  noted,  that  in  his  mistakes  and  in  his  failures, 
it  was  his  brain  alone,  always,  that  was  at  fault — feeling 
had  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  it.  Peter  was  absolutely 
devoid  of  sentiment.  That  weakness  for  Menshikof  and  other 
favourites,  which  so  offends  us,  would  appear  to  be  simply 
the  outcome  of  miscalculation.  He  had  a  very  high  opinion 
of  the  intellectual  standard  of  certain  of  his  collaborators. 
His  opinion  of  their  moral  standard,  in  the  case  of  every 
one,  was  of  the  very  lowest.  Menshikof  was  a  rascal,  in  his 
eyes,  but  a  rascal  who  was  also  a  genius.  In  the  case  of 
the  others,  whose  genius  w^as  not  sufficient  to  compensate 
him  for  their  peccadilloes,  he  could,  even  when  they  were  his 
closest  friends,  prove  himself  very  firm,  and  even  exceedingly 
harsh.  He  coolly  informed  one  of  ihem,  Andrew  Viiinius, 
that  h<;  had  removed  him  from  his  position  at  the  head  of 
the  Postal  Administration,  because  he  felt  convinced  that  he 
had,  while  occupying  that  post,  enriched  himself  and  cheated 
the  State,  more  than  was  fair  and  reasonable.  But  this 
implied  no  change  in  his  favour,  '  No  favourite  of  mine 
shall  lead  me  by  the  nose,'  he  asserted  on  this  occasion.^ 

I  have  never  seen  any  instance  of  such  absolute  insensi- 
bility of  feeling.     During  the  course  of  the  trial  of  his  son 

'  Letter,  dated  April  i6,  1701,   IVritiii^  and  Corres/'onticiiiC,  vul.  i.  p.  444. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     117 

Alexis — the  incidents  of  which  mi^ht  well  have  moved 
him — he  had  strength,  time,  and  inch'nation  to  give  his 
attention  both  to  his  usual  amusements,  and  to  other  State 
business,  which  demanded  all  his  clearness  of  mind.  A 
great  number  of  Ukases  relating  to  the  preservation  of  the 
Forests,  the  management  of  the  Mint,  the  organisation  of 
various  industrial  establishments,  the  Customs,  the  Raskol, 
and  Agriculture,  bear  dates  coeval  with  those  of  some  of 
the  gloomiest  episodes  in  that  terrible  judicial  drama.  And 
at  the  same  time,  none  of  the  anniversaries  which  the  Tsar 
was  accustomed  to  celebrate,  with  much  pomp  and  noise, 
were  forgotten  or  neglected.  Banquets,  masquerades  and 
fireworks,  all  pursued  their  course. 

He  had  an  immense  fund  of  unalterable  gaiety,  and  a 
great  love  of  social  intercourse.  In  certain  respects,  his 
character  and  temperament  remained  that  of  a  child,  even  in 
his  ripe  age.  lie  had  all  the  naive  cheerfulness,  the  effusive- 
ness, and  the  simplicity  of  youth.  Whenever  any  lucky 
event  happened  to  him,  he  could  not  refrain  from  announcing 
his  deliglit  to  all  those  who,  as  he  thought,  should  take  an 
interest  in  it.  Thus  he  would  write  fifty  letters  at  a  sitting, 
about  a  military  achie\ement  of  very  second-rate  import- 
ance— as,  for  example, the  taking  of  Stettin  in  17 IS--"-  All  his 
life  he  was  easily  amused.  He  was  seen  at  Dresden  in  171 1, 
iTiounted  on  a  hobby  horse,  shouting  'Quicker!  quicker!' 
and  laughing  till  he  cried  when  one  of  his  companions 
turned  giddy  and  fell  off.-  At  the  popular  rejoicings  which 
followed  the  conclusion  of  the  Peace  of  Nystadt,  in  1720,  he 
behaved  like  a  schoolboy  on  a  holiday.  He  pranced  and 
gesticulated  in  the  middle  of  the  crowd,  jumped  on  the 
tables,  and  sang  at  the  top  of  his  voice.  To  the  last  days  of 
his  life,  he  loved  teasing  and  rough  play,  delighted  in  coarse 
pleasantries,  and  was  always  ready  for  a  practical  joke.  In 
1723,  he  caused  the  tocsin  to  be  sounded  in  the  night,  turned 
all  the  inhabitants  of  St.  Petersburg — where  fires  were 
frequent,  and  terrible  in  their  results — out  of  their  beds,  and 
could  not  contain  himself  for  joy,  when,  rushing  half  dis- 
tracted in  the  direction  of  the  supposed  disaster,  they  came 
upon  a  brazier,  lighted,  by  his  orders,  in  a  public  square, 
by  soldiers,  who  laughed  in  their  faces,  and  greeted  them 

^  Golikof,  vol.  V.  p.  543. 

^  Archiv  fur  Sachsische  Geschichtc,  vol.  xi.  p.  345. 


Ii8  PETER  THE  GREAT 

with  sliouts  of  'A(M-il  fool's  day  !'^  One  day,  when  sitting 
at  table  with  the  Duke  of  Holstein,  he  praised  the  curative 
qualities  of  the  waters  of  Olonets,  which  he  liad  used  for 
several  years.  The  duke's  minister,  Bassewitz,  expressed 
his  intention  of  following  his  example.  The  Tsar,  with  a 
mighty  blow  upon  the  diplomat's  fat  round  back,  cried  out, 
'  What !  pour  water  into  such  a  cask  !     Come,  come  ! '  - 

How  was  it  then,  in  spite  of  his  cheerful  qualities,  that  he 
inspired  more  fear  than  affection  ?  How  was  it  that  his 
death  came  as  a  relief  to  all  around  him  ? — the  end  of  a 
painful  nightmare,  of  a  reign  of  terror  and  constraint.  In 
the  first  place,  on  account  of  those  habits  of  his,  which  bore 
the  mark  of  the  society  in  which  he  had  lived  since  child- 
hood, and  of  the  occupations  in  which  he  had  always  found 
the  most  delight.  To  the  roughness  of  a  Russian  barin,  he 
joined  all  the  coarseness  of  a  Dutch  sailor.  Further,  he  was 
violent,  and  frequently  hast)',  just  as  he  was  often  cowardly  ; 
and  this  arose  from  the  same  cause,  the  same  radical  vice  of 
his  moral  constitution — his  total  lack  of  self-control.  The 
power  of  his  will  was,  more  often  than  not,  inferior  to  the 
impetuosity  of  his  temperament,  and  that  will,  which  always 
met  with  prompt  obedience  in  external  matters,  could  not, 
consequently  perhaps,  sufficiently  restrain  the  surging  tumult 
of  his  instincts  and  his  passions.  The  extreme  servility  of 
those  about  him  contributed  to  the  development  of  this 
innate  disposition.  '  He  has  never  been  over  polite,'  writes 
the  Saxon  Minister  Lefort,^  in  his  Journal,  in  May  1721,  'but 
he  grows  more  and  more  intolerable  every  day.  Happy  is 
the  man  who  is  not  obliged  to  approach  him.''*  The  progress 
of  this  fault  was  so  gradual  as  to  be  almost  insensible.  In 
September  1698,  at  a  banquet  given  in  honour  of  the 
Emperor's  Envoy,  Guarient,  the  Tsar  lost  his  temper  with 
his  Generalissimo,  Shein,  in  the  matter  of  certain  army 
promotions,  of  which  he  disapproved.  He  struck  the  table 
with  his  naked  sword,  exclaiming,  'Thus  I  will  cut  the  whole 
of  thy  regiment  to  pieces,  and  I  will  pull  thine  own  skin  over 
thine  ears  ! '     When  Romodanovski  and  Zotof  attempted  to 

^  Bertjhnlz,  Journal,  Biischitigs-AIagazin,  vol,  xxi.  p.  238. 

-  Jhik.,  vol.  XX.  p.  387. 

'  Tills  Lefort  nnist  not  he  confounded  with  the  favourite,  who  will  be  referred 
to  later  ;  the  relationship  between  the  two  is  sonicwliat  disputed. 

*  Collected  Works  of  the  Ivitcrial  Russian  Historical  Society  (Sbornik), 
vol.  iii.  p.  II},. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     119 

interfere,  he  flew  at  them.  One  had  his  fingers  almost  cut 
off,  the  other  received  several  wounds  on  the  head.  Lefort 
— or,  as  some  other  witnesses  declare,  Menshikof — was  the 
only  person  who  could  succeed  in  calming  him.^  But,  only 
a  few  days  later,  when  supping  with  Colonel  Tchambers,  he 
knocked  that  same  Lefort  down,  and  trampled  on  him,  and 
when  Menshikof  ventured,  at  some  entertainment,  to  wear 
his  sword,  while  he  was  dancing,  he  boxed  his  ears  so  soundly 
that  the  favourite's  nose  began  to  bleed."  In  1703,  taking 
offence  at  the  remarks  addressed  to  him,  in  public,  by  the 
Dutch  Resident,  he  gave  immediate  proof  of  his  displeasure, 
by  a  blow  from  his  fist,  and  several  more  with  the  flat  of 
his  sword.^  No  notice  was  taken  of  this  outburst  ;  the 
Diplomatic  Corps  in  the  Tsar's  capital  having  long  since 
learnt  to  make  a  virtue  of  necessity.  The  Raab  family, 
resident  in  Esthonia,  still  preserves  a  cane  with  which  Peter, 
enraged  at  not  finding  horses  at  the  neighbouring  posting- 
house,  wreaked  his  fury  on  the  back  of  the  proprietor  of  the 
country-house.  This  gentleman,  having  demonstrated  his 
innocence,  was  permitted  to  keep  the  cane  by  way  of  com- 
pensation.'* And  again,  Ivan  Savitch  Brykin,  the  ancestor 
of  the  celebrated  archaeologist  Sneguiref,  used  to  tell  a  story 
that  he  had  seen  the  Tsar  kill  a  servant,  who  had  been  slow 
about  uncovering  in  his  presence,  with  blows  from  his  cane.^ 
Even  in  his  correspondence,  the  Sovereign  would  occasionally 
get  into  a  fury,  and  lose  all  self-control  ;  as,  for  example, 
when  he  fell  on  the  unfortunate  competitor  of  Augustus  il., 
Leszczynski,  and  called  him  'traitor,  and  son  of  a  thief,'  in 
a  letter  which  ran  more  than  the  ordinary  risk  of  not  being 
treated  as  confidential.^ 


IV 

The  drinking-bouts  in  which  the  Tsar  habitually  indulged 
had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  frequency  of  these  outbreaks. 
'  He  never  passed  a   single   day  without  being  the  worse 

^  Oustrialof,  vol.  iii.  p.  625  ;  vol.  iv.  p.  211. 

2  Korb,  pp.  84,  86. 

^  Despatch  from  Baluze,  Nov.  28,  1703,  Frcncli  Foreign  Office. 

*  Russian  Stale  Papers,  vol.  ii.  pp.  249  and  390. 

*  Popof,  Tatihtchef  and  his  7 ?w^j  (Moscow,  1S61),  p.  531. 

*  .Memoirs,  vol.  ii.  p.  66. 

9 


I20  PETER  THE  GREAT 

for  drink,'  so  Baron  Pollnltz  affinns,  in  his  account  of  the 
Sovcrcit^n's  visit  to  Bcrh"n  in  17 17. 

On  the  morning  of  the  iith  July  1705,  Peter,  who  was 
paying  a  visit  to  the  Monastery  of  the  Basih'an  I^^athcrs  at 
I'olo^k,  paused  before  the  statue  of  the  ilkistrious  martyr  of 
the  Order,  the  blessed  Jehosaphat,  who  was  represented 
with  a  hatchet  sticking  in  his  skull.  lie  desired  an  explana- 
tion. '  Wlio  put  that  holy  man  to  death?'  said  he.  The 
monks  answered, '  The  Schismatics.'  That  single  word  drove 
him  beside  himself.  Me  thrust  with  his  sword  at  Father 
Kozikowski,  the  Superior,  and  killed  him.  His  officers 
threw  themselves  on  the  other  monks.  Three  were  killed 
outright  ;  two  others,  mortally  wounded,  died  a  few  days 
later.  The  monastery  was  sacked,  the  church  was  dese- 
crated and  used  as  a  military  store.  A  contemporary 
description  sent  from  Polo^k  to  Rome,  and  published  in  the 
Uniate  Churches  there,  gave  various  horrible  and  disgusting 
details.  The  Tsar  was  described  as  having  called  his  Eng- 
lish mastiff  to  worry  the  first  victim.  He  was  said  to  have 
ordered  the  breasts  of  certain  women,  whose  sole  crime  had 
consisted  in  being  present  at  the  horrible  scene  and  having 
testified  their  terror  and  emotion,  to  be  cut  off.  There  was 
a  certain  amount  of  exaggeration  about  this,  but  the  facts 
I  have  already  indicated  are  quite  unshaken.  A  first  draft 
of  the  Journal  of  the  Swedish  War.  prepared  by  Makarof, 
the  Tsar's  Secretary,  contained  this  laconic  mention  of  the 
incident:  'Went  on  the  30th  of  June  (ilth  July)  to  the 
Uniate  Church  at  Polo^k,  and  killed  six  monks  for  having 
spoken  of  our  generals  as  heretics.'  Peter  struck  the  entry 
out  with  his  own  hand,  and  thus  strengthened  the  acknow- 
ledgment of  the  fact.  On  one  point  every  descri{)tion  of  the 
incident  is  agreed.  Peter,  when  he  went  to  the  Basilian 
Church,  was  in  a  state  of  intoxication.  He  had  only  just 
quitted  some  nocturnal  orgy.^ 

He  never  failed  indeed,  once  the  wine  had  died  out  in 
him,  to  regret  the  harm  done,  and  endeavour  to  repair  it. 
His  repentance  was  as  easy  as  his  wrath  was  swift.  In  May 
1703  I  find  these  significant  lines,  written  by  his  own  hand, 
in  a  billet  addressed  to  Feodor  Apraxin  :  '  I  know  not  how 
I   left  you,  for  I  was  too  much  overwhelmed  by  the  gifts 

*  See,  on  this  subject,  Theiner,  Motiutticnts,  p.  412;  Dom  Gu^pin,  Vie  de 
/osapkat  (Vsx'i^,  1874),  vol.  ii.  p.  430;  Ouslrialof,  vol.  iv.  p.  373. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     121 

of  Bacchus  ;  wherefore  I  beg  you  all  to  forgive  me  if  I 
caused  distress  to  any  of  you,  .  .  .  and  to  forget  all  that 
is  past.' 

He  frequently  drank  to  excess,  and  insisted  that  those 
who  had  the  honour  of  sitting  at  table  with  him  should  do 
the  same.  At  Moscow,  and,  in  later  years,  at  St.  Petersburg, 
the  complaints  of  the  Diplomatic  Body  on  this  subject  were 
never-ending.  It  was  a  positive  danger  to  life.  Even  the 
very  women  of  the  Tsar's  circle  were  subject  to  the  common 
rule,  and  Peter  would  find  unanswerable  arguments  to  force 
them  to  bear  him  company,  glass  in  hand.  The  daughter 
of  Shafirof,  his  Vice-Chancellor,  a  baptized  Jew,  refused  a 
goblet  of  brandy.  *  Vile  Hebrew  spawn,'  he  shouted,  *  I  '11 
teach  thee  to  obey ! '  and  he  punctuated  his  remarks  with 
two  hearty  boxes  on  the  ear.^ 

He  was  always  in  the  forefront  of  the  revel,  but  so  robust 
was  his  constitution,  that  though,  in  the  end,  his  health 
broke  down,  his  excesses  often  left  him  steady  in  body,  and 
clear  in  mind,  while  legs  were  trembling,  and  senses  reeled, 
in  the  case  of  every  one  around  him.  On  this  fact  another 
legend  has  been  built.  This  perpetual  and  almost  systematic 
debauch  was,  we  are  told,  an  instrument  of  government, 
a  means  of  reading  the  most  secret  thoughts  of  his  guests, 
to  which  the  great  man  deliberately  resorted.  A  somewhat 
shady  expedient,  if  indeed,  this  were  true.  In  any  other 
country  the  Sovereign  who  attempted  such  a  game  would 
have  risked  his  authority,  and  his  prestige.  And  even  in 
Russia,  the  political  benefit  would  not  have  outweighed  the 
moral  loss, — that  degradation  of  the  whole  of  society,  of 
which  local  customs  still  bear  some  trace.  My  readers  will 
remember  the  story  of  the  toast, 'A  toi !  France!'  proposed  in 
the  presence  of  Louis  XV.  by  a  guest  who  had  been  carried 
away  by  the  freedom  of  some  too  familiar  merrymaking. 
'Gentlemen,  the  King  is  here!'  answered  the  monarch,  thus 
recalled  to  a  sense  of  his  dignity.  And  no  more  such 
festivities  took  place.  But  Peter  allowed  himself  to  be 
addressed  in  the  second  person  singular,  every  day  of  his 
life,  in  a  constant  succession  of  such  entertainments.  If 
any  one  went  too  far,  and  it  suited  him  to  take  notice  of  the 
fact,  the  only  means  of  repression  he  would  ever  resort  to 
took  the  shape  of  an  enormous  bumper  of  brandy,  which  the 

^  Weber's  Correspondence  (published  by  Hcriniann,  18S0),  p.  173. 


122  PETER  THE  GREAT 

offender  was  forced  to  swallow  at  a  sincjle  draught.  This 
was  perfectly  certain  to  put  an  end  to  Ins  pranks,  for,  as  a 
general  rule,  it  sent  him  under  the  table.^ 

I  should  be  sorry,  indeed,  to  admit  that  all  this  shows  any 
trace  of  a  deep-seated  idea  or  deliberate  design.  I  can  see 
nothing  that  would  lead  to  such  an  opinion.  I  am,  on  the 
contrary,  struck  by  the  fact,  that,  especially  towards  the  end 
of  his  reign,  the  more  and  more  frequent  recurrence  of  the 
prolonged  and  extravagant  orgies  in  which  the  Sovereign  so 
delighted  did  not  fail  to  considerably  prejudice  the  conduct 
of  State  affairs.  *  The  Tsar,'  writes  the  Saxon  Minister, 
Lcfort,  on  the  22d  of  August  1724,  'has  kept  his  room  for 
the  last  six  days,  being  ill  in  consequence  of  the  debauches 
which  took  place  at  the  Tsarskaia-Mj'sa  (the  TsarskoTe- 
Sielo  of  the  present  day)  on  the  occasion  of  his  baptizing  a 
church,  with  3CK)0  bottles  of  wine.  This  has  delayed  his 
journey  to  Kronstadt.'^  In  January,  1725,  the  negotiations 
for  the  first  Franco-Russian  alliance  received  a  sudden 
check.  The  French  Envoy,  Campredon,  much  disturbed, 
pressed  the  Russian  Chancellor,  Ostermann,  and  ended  by 
dragging  from  him  this  expressive  admission  :  *  It  is  utterly 
impossible,  at  the  present  moment,  to  approach  the  Tsar  on 
serious  subjects  ;  he  is  altogether  given  up  to  his  amuse- 
ments, which  consist  in  going  every  day  to  the  principal 
houses  in  the  town,  with  a  suite  of  200  persons,  musicians 
and  so  forth,  who  sing  songs  on  every  sort  of  subject,  and 
amuse  themselves  by  eating  and  drinking  at  the  expense  of 
the  persons  they  visit.' ^  Even  at  an  earlier  period,  during 
the  most  active  and  heroic  epoch  in  his  life,  Peter  would 
make  these  temporary  disappearances,  and  thus  bear  testi- 
mony to  the  faults  of  his  early  education.  In  December 
1707,  when  Charles  XII.  was  making  his  preparations  for  the 
decisive  campaign  which  was  to  carry  him  into  the  very 
heart  of  Russia,  the  defensive  efforts  of  the  whole  country 
were  paralysed,  because  the  Tsar  was  at  Moscow  amusing 
himself  Courier  after  courier  did  Menshikof  despatch, 
entreating  him  to  rejoin  his  army.     Me  never  even  broke 

1  ScVierer,  vol.  v.  p.  28. 

-  Sboinik,  vol.  iii.  p.  3S2. 

3  Despatch,  dated  Jan.  9,  1725,  French  Foreign  Office.  See  also,  in  ai^ee- 
nient,  a  letter  from  the  Dutch  Resident,  De  Bie.  to  the  Secretary  of  the  States- 
r.cne'ral,  Fngel,  dated  Dec.  3,  171 7,  Dutch  Archives. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     123 

the  seals  of  the  packets,  and  went  on  making  merry.^  He 
could  stop  himself  short  in  a  moment,  it  must  be  allowed, 
and  he  had  a  genius  for  making  up  for  lost  time.  But  it 
can  hardly  be  said  that  it  was  for  the  sake  of  the  internal 
affairs  of  his  country  that  he  thus  forgot,  during  many  weeks, 
to  make  war  against  his  terrible  adversary. 


Coarse  tastes  naturally  go  hand -in-hand  with  public- 
house  morals.  In  the  society  of  women,  to  which  he  was 
always  partial,  what  Peter  seems  to  have  cared  for  most,  was 
mere  vulgar  debauchery.  And  especially  he  loved  to  sec 
his  female  companions  drunk.  Catherine  herself,  according 
to  Bassewitz,  was  '  a  first-rate  toper,'  and  owed  much  of  her 
success  to  that  fact.  On  gala  days,  at  Couit,  the  sexes  were 
generally  separated,  and  Peter  always  reserved  to  himself 
the  privilege  of  entering  the  ladies'  banqueting-room,  where 
the  Tsarina  presided,  and  where  nothing  that  she  could  do 
to  render  the  spectacle  agreeable  to  the  master's  eye 
was  neglected.  But  in  more  intimate  gatherings,  the  meal 
was  shared  by  both  sexes,  and  then  the  close  of  the  festivi- 
ties took  a  character  worthy  of  the  feasts  of  Sardanapalus. 
The  clergy,  too,  had  their  place  in  these  banquets,  at  which 
they  were  frequently  to  be  seen.  Peter  had  a  particular 
liking  for  sitting  near  these  ecclesiastical  dignitaries.  He 
would  mingle  the  most  unexpected  theological  discussions, 
with  his  most  copious  libations,  and  would  apply  the 
regulation  punishment  of  a  huge  bumper  of  brandy,  to  the 
errors  of  doctrine  which  he  loved  to  detect, — whereupon,  now 
and  again,  the  controversialists  would  come  to  blows,  to  his 
huge  delight.  His  favourite  guests — Dutch  sea-captains 
and  merchants — were  by  no  means  the  humblest  of  the  com- 
panions with  whom  he  would  sit  at  table,  and  familiarly 
clink  his  glass.  At  Dresden,  in  171 1,  at  the  Golden  Ring, 
his  favourite  lounge  was  the  serving-men's  room,  and  he 
breakfasted  with  them  in  the  courtyard.- 

There  was  nothing  delicate,  nothing  refined,  about  Peter. 
At  Amsterdam,  during  his  first  visit  there,  he   fell  in   love 

*  Essipof,  Life  of  .Meiishikof  {Russian  State  Papers,  1S75),  p.  52. 
"^  Archiv  fiir  Sachsische  Geschickte,  vol.  xi.  p.  345. 


124  PETER  THE  GREAT 

with  Tcstje-Rocn,  a  celebrated  clown,  who  p^avc  open-air 
performances,  and  whose  silly  jokes  were  the  delight  of  the 
lowest  populace,  and  would  have  carried  him  off  with  him 
to  Russia.^ 

He  was  a  boor.  In  certain  respects,  he  never,  to  his  last 
day,  lost  any  of  his  native  savagery.  But  was  he  a  cruel 
savage  ?  This  has  been  affirmed.  Nothing,  apparently, 
could  be  more  clearly  established,  than  his  reputation  for 
ferocity  ;  yet,  this  matter  should  be  looked  into.  He  was 
frequently  present  in  the  torture-chamber — where  prisoners 
were  submitted  to  the  question,  the  strappado,  or  the  knout 
— and  also  at  executions  in  the  public  squares,  when  all  the 
apparatus  for  inflicting  the  most  revolting  torments  was 
openly  displayed.  It  is  even  believed  that  he  did  not  always 
play  the  part  of  a  mere  spectator.  I  shall  have  occasion  to 
return  to  this  point,  with  reference  to  the  terrible  scenes 
which  closed  the  existence  of  the  Streltsy.  I?ut  any  dis- 
cussion on  this  matter  strikes  me  as  idle.  He  may  occasion- 
ally have  acted  the  part  of  executioner.  Why  not  ?  He 
was  already  familiar  with  the  sailor's  trade,  and  with  the 
carpenter's,  and  he  did  not  feel — he  was  not  capable  of 
feeling — any  difference.  He  was  merely  the  man  in  whose 
person  the  greatest  number  of  functions  were  united,  in  a 
country  where  the  accumulation  of  functions  was  a  feature  of 
public  life.  The  name  of  the  executor  of  his  principal  works 
in  St.  Petersburg,  also  figures  on  the  lists  of  his  Court 
Jesters  !- 

Did  Peter,  then,  actually  cut  off  men's  heads  ?  It  may  be. 
But  did  he  find  pleasure  in  the  act?  That,  too,  is 
j)robable; — the  pleasure  he  found  in  doing  anything,  the  joy 
of  action, — but  there  it  ends.  I  do  not  believe  one  word  of 
the  story  told  by  Frederick  the  Great  to  Voltaire,  about  the 
meal  during  which,  in  presence  of  the  King  of  IVussia's 
ICnvoy,  Baron  Von  Printzen,  the  Tsar  amused  himself  by 
decapitating  twenty  Streltsy,  emptying  as  many  glasses  of 
brandy  between  each  stroke,  and  finally  inviting  the  Prussian 
to  follow  his  example.-^  Round  every  trait  of  Peter's 
character,  and  every  cha])ter  of  his  history,  innumerable  tales 
have  thus  clustered,  which  should  be  put  aside  a  priori,  for 
no  other  reason   but   that  of  their  evident    absurdity.     As 

>  Schcltema,  Anecdotes,  p.  157.  -  Sieniievski,  Slovo  t  Dtelo,  p.  262. 

'  Voltaire's  IVorks,  vol.  x.  p.  71. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT -CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     125 

regards  the  rest,  they  deserve  careful  investigation.  I  have 
already  referred  to  my  own  habitual  guide — an  agreement 
of  general  data,  which,  in  spite  of  some  diversity  in  detail, 
all  tend  steadily,  and  precisely,  in  the  same  direction.  Now, 
I  can  discover  nothing,  in  Peter's  case,  which  would  point  to 
the  authentic  mark  of  the  real  wild  beast — the  greedy 
delight  in  inflicting  suffering,  the  downright  taste  for  blood. 
He  shows  no  sign  of  anything  of  this  kind  ;  there  is  not  even 
any  appearance  of  an  habitual  condition  of  sanguinary  fury. 
He  is  hard,  rough,  and  unfeeling.  Suffering,  in  his  eyes,  is 
a  mere  fact — like  health  or  sickness — and  has  no  more 
effect  on  him  than  these  ; — therefore  I  am  ready  to  follovv'  the 
legend  so  far  as  to  believe  that  he  pursued  the  men  he  had 
doomed  to  death,  on  to  the  very  scaffold,  with  reproaches  and 
invectives — that  he  jeered  at  them,  even  in  their  death-agony.^ 
But  inaccessible  as  he  is  to  pity,  he  is  moved,  and  easily 
moved,  by  scruple,  when  reasons  of  State  do  not  seem  to 
him  to  be  involved.  That  famous  axiom  which  has  been 
ascribed,  with  so  much  praise,  to  Catherine  II.  '  It  is  better 
to  set  six  guilty  persons  free,  than  to  condemn  one  innocent 
man  to  death,'  is  no  part  of  the  historic  legacy  of  that  great 
Sovereign.  Before  her  days,  Peter  had  written  it  with  his 
own  hand,  and  on  the  page  of  a  Military  Regulation  ! '  - 

Some  of  his  contemporaries  have,  indeed,  admitted  the 
impossibility  of  explaining  many  of  his  actions,  otherwise 
than  by  the  pleasure  he  seems  to  find  in  doing  disagreeable 
things  to  other  people,  or  even  by  causing  actual  pain. 
Thus  they  quote  the  story  of  one  of  his  favourites.  Admiral 
Goiovin,  who  refused  to  eat  salad  because  he  hated  the 
taste  of  vinegar,  which  always  made  him  ill.  Peter  immedi- 
ately emptied  a  great  flask  of  it  down  his  throat,  and  almost 
choked  him.^  I  am  disposed  to  believe  this  anecdote,  because 
I  have  heard  so  many  others  of  the  same  nature  : — delicate 
young  girls  forced  to  drink  a  Grenadier's  ration  of  brandy — 
decrepit  old  men  obliged  to  prance  about  the  streets,  dressed 
up  like  mountebanks.  These  things  were  matters  of  daily 
occurrence  all  through  Peter's  reign.  But  this  fact  may 
bear  a  different  interpretation.     Peter  had  adopted  certain 

^  Siemievski,  SIoz'p  i  Dielo,  p.  260. 

"^  Rosenheim,  Military  Let^is la tion  in  Russia  (St.   Petersburg,  1S7S),  p.  155. 
See  also  Filippof,  Peter  the  Great's  Reform,  and  his  Penal  Laws,  p.  143,  etc. 
^  Korb,  as  quoted  above,  p.  88. 


126  PETER  THE  GREAT 

fasliions  in  dress,  in  food,  and  in  amusement,  which  he  judjj^ed 
fitting,  and  which,  because  they  suited  him,  must,  so  he 
arf:^ued,  suit  everybody  else.  This  was  his  fashion  of  under- 
standing his  autocratic  functions,  and  his  duties  as  a 
Reformer.  On  that  he  took  his  stand.  Vinegar,  looi<ed  at 
from  this  point  of  view,  was  part  of  the  national  law,  and 
what  happened  to  Golovin,  with  respect  to  that  condiment, 
was  repeated,  in  the  case  of  others,  with  regard  to  clieese, 
oysters,  or  olive  oil — the  Tsar  never  losing  an  occasion  of 
forcing  them  down  the  throats  of  any  persons  in  whom  he 
noticed  a  shrinking  from  his  gastronomic  novelties. ^  In  the 
same  wa}',  having  chosen  to  set  his  capital  in  a  marsh,  and 
to  call  it  'his  Paradise,' he  insisted  that  every  one  else  should 
build  houses  in  the  city,  and  delight,  or  appear  to  delight  in 
it,  as  much  as  he  himself 

Clearly  he  was  not  a  man  of  ver}'  tender  feeling.  In 
January  1694,  when  his  mother  was  lying  seriously,  and 
even  dangerously,  ill,  he  fretted  furiously  at  being  kept 
in  Moscow,  would  not  endure  it,  and  fixed  the  day  for  his 
departure.  At  the  very  hour  when  he  should  have  started, 
her  death-agony  began,  and  he  lost  no  time  about  burying 
her.  Neither  must  I  overlook  the  blood-stained  ghost  of 
Alexis,  and  the  weeping  shadow  of  Eudoxia.  But,  even  here, 
the  circumstances,  which,  morally  speaking,  went  so  far  to 
make  up  the  man's  character,  and  certain  other  facts, — such 
as  the  terrible  events  inseparable  from  any  revolutionary 
period,  and  the  rebellious  instincts  of  a  nature  which  would 
brook  no  contradiction,  not  forgetting  the  uncompromising 
nature  of  his  whole  policy,  the  most  personal  and  most  self- 
willed  that  ever  existed, — must  be  tak-cn  into  account. 

He  adored  his  second  son,  and  his  correspondence  with 
Catherine — always  most  affectionate,  as  far  as  she  is  con- 
cerned— teems  with  expressions  proving  his  constant  soli- 
citude for  the  health  and  happiness  of  his  two  daughters, 
Anne  and  I'.lizabeth,  whom  he  jokingly  described  as 
'thieves,'  because  they  took  up  his  time,  but  whom  he  also 
calls  'his  bowels  '  {Enigcweidc).  He  went  every  day  to  their 
school-room,  and  looked  over  their  lessons. 

He  did  not  shrink  from  entering  the  cell  of  a  prisoner, 
one  of  his  former  favourites,  and  informing  him  that  he 
very  much  regretted  being  obliged  to  have  his  head  cut  off 
'  Vockcrodt,  according  to  Herrmann,  p.  19. 


PHYSICAL  PORTRAIT— CHARACTERISTIC  TRAITS     127 

on  the  following  morning-.  This  he  did  to  Mons,  in  1724. 
But,  so  long  as  his  friends  appeared  to  him  worthy  of  his 
friendship,  lie  was  not  only  affectionate,  he  was  coaxing  and 
caressing,  even  to  excess. 

In  August  1723,  at  the  Fete  in  commemoration  of  the 
creation  of  the  Russian  Navy — in  presence  of  the  'Ances- 
tress '  {^Diedojishka)  of  his  fleet,  the  English  boat  found  in  a 
barn  in  1688 — Peter,  not  altogether  sober,  it  is  true,  kissed 
the  Duke  of  Holstein  on  the  neck,  on  the  forehead,  on  the 
head — having  first  pulled  off  his  wig — and  finally,  according 
to  Bergholz,  embraced  him  in  a  yet  more  tender  manner.^ 

Even  from  the  point  of  view  with  which  we  are  now 
engaged,  these  peculiarities  can  hardly  be  taken  to  mark 
him  as  a  mere  imitation  of  an  Asiatic  despot.  Something 
better  he  surely  is,  both  as  a  Sovereign  and  as  a  private 
individual — something  quite  different,  at  all  events,  removed, 
in  many  respects,  from  common  humanity,  above  it,  or  below 
it,  but  never,  either  instinctively,  or  intentionally,  inhuman. 
A  series  of  Ukases  which  bear  his  signature  prove  that  his 
mind,  if  not  his  heart,  was  open  to  ideas,  if  not  to  sentiments, 
of  a  gentler  kind.  In  one  of  these,  he  claims  the  title  of 
'  Protector  of  Widows,  of  Orphans,  and  of  the  Defenceless.' ^ 
The  moral  centre  of  gravity,  in  the  case  of  this  great  uncon- 
scious idealist,  who  was  also  (and  his  was  not  a  unique  case) 
a  mighty  sensualist,  must  be  sought  for  on  the  intellectual 
side.  In  spite  of  the  natural  heat  of  his  temperament,  he 
succeeded,  on  the  whole,  in  the  majority  of  instances,  in 
subordinating  his  sensations  to  that  common  law  of  which 
he  had  proclaimed  himself  the  Chief  Slave — believing  that 
he  thus  acquired  the  right  of  bringing  all  other  wills,  all 
other  intelligences  and  jiassions,  without  distinction,  and 
without  favour,  under  its  rule. 

^  Biisckiiigs-AIagaziii,  vol.  xxi.  p.  301. 

a  Collected  Laws,  pp.  337,  462,  777,  839,  3279,  3290,  329S,  36.8. 


CHAPTER    II 

INTELLECTUAL   TRAITS   AND   MORAL   FEATURES 

Mental  capacity — Power  and  elasticity — Comparison  with  Napoleon  I. — 
Slavonic  acceptivity — Intercourse  with  the  Quakers — Law — Curiosity  and 
impatience  for  knowledge — A  niglit  spent  in  a  museum — Incoherent  and 
rudimentary  nature  of  the  knowledge  thus  acquired — Peter's  diplomacy — 
Was  he  a  great  leader? — Lack  of  proportion — Mixture  of  gravity  and 
puerility  —  Peter  as  surgeon  and  dentist — Scientific  and  artistic  creations — 
Peter  and  the  Abhe  Bignon. 

His  clearness  and  pers])icuity  of  mind — His  epistolary  style — The  Oriental 
touch  —  Proposal  to  reconstruct  the  Colossus  of  Rhodes — Contradictory 
features — Generosity  and  meanness — Loyalty  and  roguery — Modesty  and 
love  of  bragging — History  and  tradition — The  Western  spirit  of  chivalry, 
and  the  Byzantine  influence  in  Russia — ^Joan  of  Arc  and  (^)ueen  Olga — 
Bayard  and  St.  Alexander  Nevski — Peter's  morality — Lack  of  scruple 
ami  scorn  for  convention — Causes  and  results. 

Strength  and  narrowness  of  insight — Intellectual  short-sightedness — Absence 
of  the  psychological  sense — Disinclination  for  abstract  conception — Want 
of  comprehension  of  the  ideal  elements  of  civilisation — Yet  he  was  an 
idealist. 

Love  of  disguises — Buffoonery — Moral  debauch,  or  political  intention — 
The  Court  jesters — Poj^ular  manners — The  Tsar's  amusements — The  ugly 
side  of  these  recreations — Mingling  of  masquerade  and  of  real  life — A 
jester  made  Keeper  of  the  Seals — I^lasked  senators  sit  in  council. 

The  mt)ck  Patriarchate — The  object  of  itsestal)lishment — Pope  or  Patriarch  ? 
— Did  Peter  intend  to  cast  ridicule  on  his  clerg)'? — Origin  and  develop- 
ment of  the  institution — The  mock  Pope  and  his  conclave— Grotesque 
ceremonies  and  processions — lather  Caillaud's  habit — The  marriage  of 
the  Knes-papa — The  Princess  AJjbcss — Synthesis  and  explanation  of  the 
phenomenon — Local  causes  and  foreign  influences — Byzantine  asceticism 
and  Western  Satinic  practices — .Moral  compression  and  reaction — Oii- 
ginality,  despotic  fancy,  and  levelling  tendencies — Peter  and  Ivan  the 
Terrible — Louis  XI.  and  Falstafl. 


The  brain  of  Peter  the  Great  was  certainly  a  phenomenal 
ort^anism.  Irresistibly,  both  by  its  nature  and  by  its  force, 
it  enforces  a  comparison  with  that  of  Napoleon  I.  We  note 
the  same  power  of  continuous  effort,  without  apparent  weari- 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES      129 

ness,  the  same  spring  and  flexibility,  the  same  faculty  of 
applying  itself,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  to  an  indefinite 
number  of  subjects,  all  absolutely  dissimilar  and  of  most 
unequal  importance,  without  the  smallest  visible  scattering 
of  the  mental  faculties,  or  any  diminution  of  the  attention 
devoted  to  each  particular  object.  At  Stockerau,  near 
Vienna,  in  1698,  when  the  Russian  Ambassadors  were  in 
conflict  with  the  Imperial  officials  over  the  details  of  their 
solemn  entry  into  the  capital,  Peter  Mihailof,  while  sharing 
in  all  the  discussions,  which  cause  him  not  a  little  irrita- 
tion, writes  orders,  to  Vinnius,  concerning  the  building 
of  a  Russian  church  at  Pekin  !  In  one  of  his  letters  to 
Admiral  Apraxin,  dated  September  1706,  I  find  instruc- 
tions for  the  campaign  then  in  course,  directions  as  to  the 
translation  of  a  cargo  of  Latin  books,  and  advice  as  to  the 
education  of  a  couple  of  puppies,  with  the  following  details 
of  what  they  are  to  be  taught  : — '  First,  to  retrieve  ;  second, 
to  pull  off"  their  hats  ;  third,  to  present  arms  ;  fourth,  to 
jump  over  a  stick  ;  fifth,  to  sit  up  and  beg  for  food.'  On 
the  15th  of  November  1720,  writing  to  lagoujinski,  whom 
he  had  sent  on  a  mission  to  Vienna,  he  holds  forth  on  the 
retrocession  of  Schleswig  to  the  Duke  of  Holstein,  mentions 
the  picture  of  a  pig-faced  girl,  brought  back  to  Russia  by 
Peter  Alexieievitch  Tolstoi,  desiring  to  know  where  the 
girl  is,  and  whether  it  is  possible  to  see  her ;  and  speaks  of 
two  or  three  dozen  bottles  of  good  tokay,  which  he  would 
like  to  possess,  desiring  to  know  the  price  and  the  expense 
of  transport,  before  he  gives  the  order  for  purchase.^ 

His  was  a  mind  open  to  every  perception,  with  that 
eminently  Slav  faculty,  which  Herzen  describes  under  the 
name  of  acceptivity,  carried  to  the  extremest  point  of  develop- 
ment. Until  he  arrived  in  London  he  had  probably  never 
heard  of  the  Quakers,  nor  of  their  doctrine.  By  a  mere 
chance,  the  house  he  inhabited  was  that  in  which  the  famous 
William  Penn  had  lived  during  that  critical  time  in  his 
stormy  existence,  when  he  was  prosecuted  as  a  traitor,  and 
as  a  conspirator.  This  fact  sufficed  to  throw  the  Tsar 
into  almost  intimate  relations  with  Penn  himself,  and  his 
co-religionists,  Thomas  Story  and  Gilbert  MoUyson.  He 
accepted    their   pamphlets,  and    listened    devoutly  to  their 

1   Writings   and  Correspondence,  vol.  i.   p.   253 ;    Golikof,  vol.   ii.    p.    296 ; 
vol.  viii.  p.  120. 


I30  PETER  THE  GREAT 

sermons.  When,  some  nineteen  \'ears  later,  he  arrived  at 
Friederichstadt,  in  Holstein,  with  a  body  of  troops  who  were 
to  assist  the  Danes  a<j;ainst  the  Swedes,  his  first  question 
was  as  to  whether  there  were  any  Quakers  in  the  town. 
Their  meetiiic^-places  havinjr  been  pointed  out  to  him,  he 
duly  attended  their  gatherings.^  He  did  not  understand 
much  of  Law's  sj'stem,  nor  of  finance  in  general,  yet  Law 
himself,  his  system,  and  his  fate,  interested  him  deeply,  from 
the  first  moment  when  he  had  any  knowledge  of  him.  lie 
corresponded  with  the  adventurous  banker,  and  followed  his 
course  with  curious  eyes — delighted  at  first,  indulgent  after- 
wards, but  always  sympathetic,  even  in  the  speculator's 
hour  of  darkest  disgrace.- 

The  moment  there  is  a  question  of  seeing  or  learning 
anything,  his  eagerness  and  anxiety  of  mind  make  Napoleon 
appear  a  comparatively  patient  man.  Arriving  at  Dresden 
one  evening,  after  a  day  of  travelling  which  had  reduced  all 
his  suite  to  a  state  of  utter  exhaustion,  he  insisted,  the 
moment  he  had  supped,  on  being  conducted  to  the  Kunst- 
kaiiicra,  or  museum  of  the  town.  lie  reached  it  at  one 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  spent  the  night  there,  feeding 
his  curiosity  by  torchlight.^  And  indeed,  this  curiosity,  as 
lias  already  been  made  evident,  was  as  universal  and  as 
indefatigable  as  it  was  devoid  of  taste  and  of  propriety. 
When  the  Tsarina,  Marfa  Apraxin,  Feodor's  widow,  died, 
in  1715,  at  the  age  of  fifty-one  years,  he  desired  to  verif}'  the 
truth  of  a  general  public  belief,  which  had  its  foundation 
in  the  sickly  constitution  of  the  late  Tsar,  and  the  austere 
habits  of  his  widow.  To  attain  this  object,  he  insisted  on 
performing  the  autopsy  of  the  corpse  with  his  own  hands, 
and  satisfied  himself  completely,  so  it  would  appear,  as  to 
his  sister-in-law's  virtue.* 

The  sum  of  his  knowledge  and  qualifications,  thus  per- 
petually increased,  preserved,  in  spite  of  its  prodigious 
variety,  a  certain  incoherent  and  rudimentary  quality. 
Russian  was  the  only  language  he  could  speak  fluently  ; 
his  Dutch  would  only  carry  him  through  conversations  with 
seafaring  men  and  on   naval  subjects.     In   November   1721, 

^  Clarkson,  Life  of  WiUiam  Pom  (1S13),  p.  253. 
2  Russian  Slate  Papers  (1S74),  p.  157S. 
'  Arrhivfiir  Siichsischc  Gesdiichte,  vol.  xi.  p.  345. 
*  Dulgorcukof's  Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  I4. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES       131 

finding  it  necessary  to  hold  a  secret  conversation  with  the 
French  Envoy,  Campredon,  who  had  resided  in  Holland 
and  made  himself  familiar  with  the  language  of  that  country, 
he  was  fain  to  have  recourse  to  an  interpreter,  and  made 
a  somewhat  unlucky  choice.^  He  was  scantily  acquainted, 
indeed,  with  the  usual  methods  of  Western  diplomacy.  In 
May  1719,  La  Vie,  the  French  Resident  at  St.  Petersburg, 
remarked  'that  he  had  allowed  the  Conferences  at  Aland  to 
proceed  without  insisting  on  '"the  preliminary  points,"' 
thus  allowing  the  Swedes  to  mislead  him  by  means  of  a 
most  compromising  sham  negotiation,  the  only  result  of 
which  was  to  separate  him  from  his  allies.  In  his  foreign 
policy,  he  worked  on  a  system  peculiar  to  himself,  or  to  his 
nation.  He  combined  Slavonic  shrewdness  w'ith  Asiatic 
cunning.  He  threw  foreign  negotiators  off  their  guard,  by 
a  manner  peculiar  to  himself,  by  unexpected  acts  of  famili- 
arity or  of  rudeness,  by  sudden  caresses.  He  would  inter- 
rupt a  speaker  by  kissing  him  on  the  brow  ;  he  would  make 
long  speeches,  really  intended  for  the  gallery,  of  which  his 
hearers  could  not  understand  a  word,  and  would  then  dis- 
miss them  before  they  had  time  to  ask  for  an  explanation.- 

He  has  passed,  and  does  still  pass,  even  in  the  eyes  of 
certain  military  historians,  for  a  great  military  leader.  Cer- 
tain new  and  happy  ideas  as  to  the  duty  of  Reserves,  the 
part  to  be  played  by  cavalry,  the  principles  of  the  mutual 
support  to  be  rendered  by  isolated  bodies  of  troops,  simpli- 
fication of  military  formation,  and  the  employment  of  impro- 
vised fortifications,  have  been  ascribed  to  him.  The  Battle 
of  Poltava,  so  we  are  assured,  furnishes  an  unique  example, 
and  one  which  aroused  the  admiration  of  Maurice  de  Saxe, 
of  the  use  of  redoubts  in  offensive  warfare, — which  redoubts 
are  said  to  have  been  Peter's  own  invention.  We  are  further 
told  that  he  personally  conducted  the  numerous  siege  opera- 
tions which  took  place  during  the  Northern  War,  and  that 
this  direct  intervention  on  his  part  ensured  their  success.^  I 
am  not  qualified  to  enter  into  any  controversy  on  such  a 
subject,  and  I  should  have  been  disposed  to  bowunquestion- 
ingly  before  the  admiring  testimony  of  Maurice  de  Saxe. 
13ut  a  contradictory  witness  stops  me  short — the  Journal  of 

*  Campredon's  Despatch,  Dec.  i,  1721,  French  Forci^jn  Ofllce. 
^  De  Bie,  to  the  States  Gener.il,  May  3,  17 12,  Dutch  State  Papers. 
^  Petrof,  as  already  quoted,  vol.  ii.  p.  84,  etc. 


132  PETER  THE  GREAT 

the  Northern  War,  to  which  I  have  already  referred.  This 
record,  drawn  up  under  Peter's  personal  superintendence, 
does  not  make  him  appear  either  a  great  historian  or  a  good 
strategian.  The  descriptions  of  battles  which  I  find  in  these 
pages — and  there  is  indeed  little  else  to  be  found — arc  de- 
plorably scanty,  as  in  the  case  of  the  battle  of  Narva,  or, 
when  they  enter  into  detail,  flagrantly  inexact.  I  know  not 
whether  the  great  man  was  the  real  inventor  of  the  redoubts 
which  pla)'ed  such  an  important  part  at  Poltava,  but  all  the 
world  knows  that  he  contented  himself,  in  that  battle,  by 
leading  a  regiment,  leaving  the  chief  command,  as  always, 
to  his  generals.  He  studied  military  engineering  with  some 
care,  and  took  measures  to  put  his  new  acquisitions  on  the 
lialtic  shores  into  a  due  state  of  defence.  But  the  fortress 
of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  at  St.  Petersburg  can  hardly  be 
called  a  masterpiece  of  engineering  skill  ;  and  even  his 
greatest  admirers  admit  that  not  one  of  the  other  works  of 
this  kind,  commenced  under  his  direction,  has  ever  been 
completed.^  As  to  the  sieges,  the  success  of  which  may  have 
been  ascribed  to  him,  they  appear  to  me  to  have  invariably 
ended  in  an  assault,  all  the  credit  for  which  was  due  to  the 
brilliant  qualities,  the  courage,  and  the  discipline  of  the  new 
Russian  army.  These  qualities  strike  me  as  forming  the 
only  increase  in  this  particular  line  which  may  be  written 
down  to  the  undisputed  personal  credit  of  the  great  creator. 
He  did,  as  I  shall  elsewhere  show,  create  almost  every 
portion  of  that  wonderful  instrument  by  which  the  power 
and  prestige  of  his  country  have  been  ensured.  He  was  an 
unrivalled  organiser,  and  I  am  even  willing  to  admit,  with 
some  of  his  apologists,  that  he  outstripped  his  own  time — in 
recruiting  matters,  for  instance — in  the  application  of  cer- 
tain principles  which  had  been  proclaimed  and  theoretically 
affirmed  in  Western  countries,  long  before,  but  which  had 
been  pushed  to  one  side  by  established  routine,  and  elbowed 
out  of  practical  experience. 

What  prevented  him  from  acquiring  a  real  mastery  of  any 
particular  branch  of  knowledge  was  not  only  his  lack  of  a 
sense  of  proportion,  but  also  a  radical  defect  which,  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  his  life,  led  him  to  joke,  as  it  were, 
with  serious  things,  and  take  childish  matters  seriously. 
Of  this    fact,  his    studies    and    pretensions,   in   matters   of 

'  Pctrof,  as  alrc.-idy  quoted,  vol.  ii.  p.  84,  etc. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES      133 

surgery  and  dentistry,  are  a  more  than  sufficient  proof. 
After  the  date  of  his  return  from  Holland  he  always  carried 
a  case  of  surgical  instruments  upon  his  person,  and  never 
allowed  an  opportunity  of  using  them  to  slip  through  his 
fingers.  The  officials  connected  with  the  St.  Petersburg 
hospitals  had  orders  to  warn  him  whenever  an  interesting 
surgical  case  occurred.  He  was  almost  always  present  at 
the  operations,  and  frequently  wielded  the  surgeon's  knife 
with  his  own  hand.  Thus  one  day  he  tapped  a  woman 
afflicted  with  dropsy,  who  died  a  few  days  later.  The  poor 
creature  had  done  her  best  to  defend  herself,  if  not  against 
the  operation,  at  all  events  against  the  operator.  He  made 
a  point  of  attending  her  funeral.  A  bag  full  of  teeth, 
extracted  by  the  august  pupil  of  the  travelling  Amsterdam 
dentist,  is  still  preserved  in  the  Museum  of  Arts  at  St. 
Petersburg.  One  of  the  surest  methods  of  paying  court  to 
the  Sovereign  was  to  claim  his  assistance  for  the  extraction 
of  a  grinder.  He  not  unfrequently  pulled  out  a  sound  tooth. 
His  valet  de  chambre,  PolouboTarof,  complained  to  him  one 
day  that  his  wife,  under  pretext  of  a  bad  tooth,  had  long 
refused  to  perform  her  conjugal  duties.  He  sent  for  her, 
operated  on  her  then  and  there,  in  spite  of  her  tears  and 
screams,  and  warned  her  that  if  she  continued  obdurate  he 
would  pull  out  every  tooth  in  her  two  jaws.  But  it  is  only 
fair  to  recollect  that  Moscow  owes  him  the  first  military 
hospital,  built  in  1706,  to  which  he  successively  added  a 
school  of  surgery,  an  anatomical  collection,  and  a  Botanical 
Garden,  in  which  he  himself  planted  a  certain  number  of 
specimen  trees.  In  that  same  year,  too,  dispensaries  were 
established,  by  his  care,  in  St.  Petersburg,  Kazan,  Glouhof, 
Riga,  and  Revel. ^ 

Artistic  or  scientific  studies  and  creations  were  far  from 
being,  in  his  case,  simple  matters  of  taste  or  natural  inclina- 
tion. It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  he  possessed  no  artistic 
sense,  no  taste  for  painting,  nor  even  for  architecture.  His 
low  wooden  cottage  at  Preobrajenskoie,  soon  so  sunken  in 
the  soil  that  he  could  touch  the  roof  with  his  hand,  amply 
sufficed  for  his  own  personal  needs.  For  many  years,  he 
would  not  live  in  any  other  kind  of  house,  even  at  St.  Peters- 
burg. Yet  he  held  it  proper  to  build  palaces  for  his  col- 
laborators to  dwell  in.     But  building  operations  flagged  at 

*  Shoubinski,  Historical  Skehhes,  p.  II,  etc. 


134  PETER  THE  GREAT 

last.  Once  more  he  saw  the  necessity  for  settin<T  a  personal 
exainplc,  and  so  he  ended  by  having  a  Winter  and  a  Summer 
Palace  of  his  own.  These  were  a  somewhat  clumsy  imitation 
of  Western  models — for  he  insisted,  too,  on  being  his  own 
architect.  The  main  body  of  the  buildings  clashed  with  the 
wings,  and  formed  ungraceful  angles.  Further,  he  would 
have  double  ceilings  in  the  rooms  reserved  for  his  own  use, 
so  that  he  might  still  fancy  he  was  living  in  a  wooden  cabin. 
Ikit  the  impulse  had  been  given,  and  in  course  of  time, 
the  French  architect,  Leblond,  retained  at  the  heavy  salary 
of  40,000  livres  a  year,  succeeded  in  correcting  past  errors, 
and  in  giving  the  new  capital  that  monumental  and  decora- 
tive appearance  appropriate  to  its  dignity.  Peter  took  pains 
also,  to  add  to  the  small  collection  of  works  of  art  made 
during  his  first  stay  in  Holland.  When  he  reappeared  in 
Amsterdam  in  1717,  he  had  learnt  to  put  on  the  airs  of  an 
enlightened  amateur.  He  ended  by  possessing  works  by 
Rubens,  Vandyck,  Rembrandt,  Jan  Steen,  Van  der  Werf, 
Lingelbach,  Bergheim,  Mieris,  Wouvermann,  Breu(;hel, 
Ostade,  and  Van  Huyssen.  He  had  a  collection  of  sea 
pictures  in  his  Summer  Palace.  In  his  country  house  at 
Peterhof  there  was  a  whole  gallery  of  paintings.  A  talented 
engraver  and  draughtsman,  I'icard,  and  a  curator  named 
Gsell,  of  Swiss  origin,  formerly  a  picture-dealer  in  Holland, 
were  engaged  to  look  after  these  collections,  the  first  ever 
seen  in  Russia. 

But  there  was  not  a  touch  of  personal  interest  in  these 
matters.  We  may  venture  to  doubt  whether  the  Tsar  took 
much  pleasure  in  his  correspondence  with  the  Abbe  Bignon, 
the  King's  librarian,  and  a  member  of  the  Academic  des 
Sciences,  of  which  Peter  had  become  an  honorary  member 
after  his  stay  in  Paris  in  17 17.  In  1720  he  sent  his  librarian, 
— for  by  this  time  he  had  provided  himself  with  a  librar)' — 
a  German,  Schuhmacher  by  name,  to  the  Abbe  with  a 
manuscript,  written  in  gold  on  vellum,  which  had  been 
found  at  Si^mipalatinsk,  in  Siberia,  in  the  vaults  of  a  ruined 
church.  He  desired  to  have  the  document  deciphered,  and 
to  know,  first  of  all,  in  what  language  it  was  written,  lie 
appears  to  have  been  greatly  deliglUed  when  the  Abb(§, 
having  called  in  the  assistance  of  the  King's  regular 
translator,  Fourmont,  informed  him  that  the  mysterious 
language  was  that  of  the  Tangouts,  a  very  ancient  Kalmuk 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES       135 

tribe.  It  was  not  till  after  his  death  that  it  occurred  to  two 
Russians  whom  he  had  sent  to  Pekin  to  study  Chinese,  and 
who  had  remained  there  for  sixteen  years,  to  look  more 
closely  into  this  scientific  process,  and  thus  to  make  a  dis- 
covery which  somewhat  compromised  the  reputation  of  the 
Parisian  Orientalists,  The  manuscript  was  of  Manchurian 
origin,  and  the  text  was  absolutely  different  from  that  given 
by  Fourmont.^  But  Peter  died  in  the  conviction  that  he 
had  elucidated  an  important  point  in  the  national  paleo- 
graphy and  ethnography,  and  thus  conscientiously  performed 
his  duty  as  a  Sovereign. 

Among  the  curiosities  collected  by  him  in  his  Museum  of 
Art  and  of  Natural  History,  contemporary  writers  m°ntion 
some  living  specimens  of  the  human  race  :  a  man  with 
some  monstrous  infirmity,  and  children  afflicted  with  ph}'si- 
cal  malconforrnations.-  The  great  man  believed  that  such 
exhibitions  as  these  mi":ht  serve  the  cause  of  science. 


II 

His  mind  was  clear,  perspicuous,  exact,  going  straight  to 
its  point,  unhesitatingly  and  unswervingly — like  a  tool 
wielded  by  a  sure  hand.  In  this  respect,  his  correspondence 
is  exceedingly  characteristic.  He  never  writes  long  letters, 
like  his  heiress,  Catherine  II. — he  has  no  time  for  that,  He 
has  no  style,  no  rhetoric — he  fails  both  in  caligraphy  and  in 
spelling.  His  handwriting  is  generally  as  illegible  as  that 
of  Napoleon.  In  most  of  his  words  there  are  letters  missing. 
A  note  addressed  to  Menshikof  begins  thus: — ^ Mci  Jicz 
hnide  in  Ka?najiiara,^  which  is  intended  to  mean  'Mein  Herz- 
brudcr  und  Kamarad '  (my  heart's  brother,  and  comrade  !). 
Even  in  his  signature,  ^Izpi  ,  he  introduces  a  whim- 
sical abbreviation,  borrowed  from  the  Slavonic  alphabet. 
But  he  says  what  he  has  to  say,  well  and  quickly, 
finding  the  right  expression,  the  words  which  best  con- 
vey and  sum  up  his  thoughts,  without  any  delay  or 
apparent  effort.  He  is  rather  fond  of  a  joking  style  of 
composition,  and  the  great  Catherine's  peculiarity  in  this 
respect  may  have  been  a  mere  imitation  of  his.  Thus,  for 
example,  he  writes  to  Menshikof  in  the  character  of  a  dog  of 
which  his  favourite  is  particularly  fond.     Very  often  he  will 

^  Golikof,  vol,  viii.  p.  84.  ^  Biischings-Magazitt,  vol.  xix.  p.  115. 

10 


136  PETER  THE  GREAT 

break  out  intn  sallies,  cjften  carried  much  too  far,  both  in 
thought  and  in  expression  ;  but  oftener  still,  he  is  incisive 
and  sarcastic.  Vice- Admiral  Cruys  sent  him  a  Report,  in 
which  he  complained  of  his  officers,  and  complimented  the 
Tsar  himself,  saying,  that  Peter,  '  himself  an  accomplished 
sailor,  would  know  better  than  any  one  how  indispensable 
discipline  was  in  the  Navy.'  He  replied,  '  The  Vice- 
Admiral  chose  his  own  Subordinates,  he  can  therefore  blame 
none  but  himself  for  their  faults.  On  quite  a  recent  occasion, 
he  appeared  less  convinced  of  the  qualities  which  he  now 
attributes  to  the  Sovereign.  His  criticisms  and  his  com- 
mendations were  doubtless  made  after  he  had  been  drinking. 
They  have  not  a  leg  to  stand  on.  Either  he  must  cease  to 
include  Die  in  his  list  of  skilful  sailors,  or  he  must  no  longer 
say  white  nhen  I  say  black.'  ^ 

There  is  something  oriental  in  the  natural  imagery  and 
picturesqucness  of  his  style.  Referring  to  his  alliance  with 
Denmark,  and  the  disappointment  it  had  caused  him,  I  find 
this  reflection,  written  in  his  hand,  '  Two  bears  in  the  same 
lair  never  agree.'  And  another,  'Our  alliance  is  like  two 
young  horses  harnessed  to  a  carriage.'  -  Si)eaking  of  Poland, 
where  the  public  mind  is  in  a  state  of  continual  ferment,  he 
writes,  *  Affairs  there  are  just  like  new  braha'  (a  drink  made 
of  barley  and  millet).  A  man  who  talks  idly  is  compared  to 
'  a  bear  who  talks  about  gelding  a  mare.'  Plven  as  a 
legislator,  he  makes  use  of  this  sort  of  language.  When  he 
creates  the  post  of  Attorne\'-General  in  the  Senate,  he  de- 
clares his  desire  to  prevent  that  body  from  'playing  at  cards 
with  the  laws,  and  sorting  them,  according  to  their  colours,' 
adding  that  the  Attorney-General  is  to  be  '  his  eye.' 

Though  a  poor  historian,  from  the  artistic  point  of  view, 
he  was  far  from  lacking  the  historic  sense.  He  described 
events  verj'  ill,  but  he  understood  their  meaning  and  their 
bearing  very  well  indeed.  Even  in  his  letters  to  Catherine, 
which  are  of  the  most  confidential  kind,  his  comments  are 
exceedingly  correct.  He  evidently  had  the  clearest  compre- 
hension of  what  he  was  doing,  and  of  what  was  happening 
to  him. 

His  fancy  was  naturally  attracted  by  what  was  large,  and 
even    by    what   was    exaggeratedly    huge — a    very    oriental 

*  Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  p.  272. 

*  1712,  and  1716,  Letters  to  Catherine  I.  (i86i  edition),  pp.  29  and  49. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES      137 

quality,  again.  In  his  last  years  he  meditated  a  sort  of 
reconstruction  of  the  Colossus  of  Rhodes.  A  huge  tower 
was  to  have  been  set  astride  over  the  strait,  between  Kron- 
stadt  and  Kronsloot.  It  was  to  be  crowned  by  a  fortress 
and  a  lighthouse,  and  below  it  the  largest  vessels  were  to 
pass  with  ease.  The  foundations  were  actually  laid  in  1724.^ 
He  would  fall  into  fits  of  feverish  enthusiasm,  epic  or  tragic, 
and  this,  with  freaks  of  eccentricit}-,  and  stains  of  coarseness, 
which  have  puzzled  many  excellent  judges.  There  is  some- 
thing Shakespearian  about  some  of  his  inspirations.  In 
1697,  when  his  departure  for  Europe  was  delayed  by  the 
discovery  of  Tsikler's  plot — struck  by  the  link  existing 
between  the  criminality  of  the  present  and  that  of  the  past 
— he  caused  the  corpse  of  Ivan  Miloslavski,  which  had  been 
rotting  in  the  tomb  for  twelve  years  past,  to  be  disinterred. 
The  remains  were  taken  to  Preobrajenskoie  on  a  sledge, 
dragged  by  twelve  hogs,  and  placed  in  an  open  coffin  under 
the  scaffold  on  which  Tsikler  and  his  accomplice  Sokovnin 
were  to  die  by  inches — cut  to  pieces,  hacked  slowly  limb 
from  limb.  At  every  knife-thrust  the  blood  of  the  con- 
demned men  was  to  flow,  in  an  avenging  stream,  on  all  that 
remained  of  the  hated  enemy,  who  had  been  snatched  from 
his  silent  grave,  to  undergo  the  ghastly  reprisals  of  his 
conqueror.2  In  1723,  another  scene,  less  hideous,  but  quite 
as  extraordinary,  was  enacted  at  PreobrajenskoTe.  Peter 
caused  his  wooden  cottage,  which — (it  had  been  temporarily 
removed) — had  been  replaced,  by  his  orders,  in  its  original 
position,  to  be  burnt.  In  those  days,  and  in  a  country,  the 
inhabitants  of  which  were  so  little  removed  from  the  nomadic 
form  of  existence,  dwellings  were  looked  upon  as  furniture. 
It  was  a  symbolic  and  commemorative  conflagration.  Under 
that  roof — as  Peter  confided  to  the  Duke  of  Holstein — he 
had  conceived  the  plan  of  his  terrible  duel  with  the  Swedish 
monarch,  now  brought  to  a  happy  close  ;  and  in  his  joy  over 
the  peace  thus  restored,  he  desired  to  efface  every  memory  of 
the  anguish  of  the  past.  But  he  took  it  into  his  head  to 
heighten  the  solemnity  of  this  pacific  demonstration  by  a 
display  of  fireworks.  He  kindled  the  half-rotten  timbers  of 
his   cottage  with  Roman   candles,  and   set   the   roof  alight 

^  Golikof,  vol.  X.  p.  425. 

*  Jeliaboujski's   Memoirs,  p.    112;  Gordon's /c?«/v;a/,  March  4,  1697;   Ous- 
trialof,  vol.  iii.  p.  22. 


138  PETER  THE  GREAT 

with  many-coloured  fires,  beating  the  drum  himself,  mean- 
while, from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  auto  da  fc} 

Now  and  again,  even  in  a  far  more  elevated  sphere  of  con- 
ception and  of  feeling,  he  seems  to  rise  without  an  effort,  and 
hover  with  those  choicest  souls  in  history,  whose  flight  soared 
highest,  and  whose  scope  was  widest.  In  17 12,  Stephen 
lavorski,  the  Little-Russian  monk  whom  he  had  brought 
from  Kief  to  Moscow,  and  raised  to  a  bishopric,  publicly 
found  fault  with  him,  thundering  reproaches,  in  one  of  his 
sermons,  against  husbands  who  forsook  their  wives,  and 
men  who  would  not  fast  at  the  appointed  seasons.  This  was 
rank  high  treason,  and  a  report  to  this  effect  was  sub- 
mitted to  the  Sovereign.  Peter  merely  made  this  note  on 
the  margin  of  the  document :  '  First  of  all,  face  to  face, — then 
before  witnesses.' 

When  lavorski  made  as  though  he  would  retire  into  a 
monastery,  he  would  not  hear  of  it  ;  but  he  caused  the 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople  to  send  him  a  dispensation, 
which  relieved  him  from  the  necessity  of  observing  the 
Russian  Lent.^  A  fanatic  attempted,  one  day,  to  murder 
him,  firing  two  pistol  shots  at  him  in  his  sleep.  The  weapon 
missed  fire  each  time,  and  the  would-be  assassin,  overcome 
with  terror,  woke  the  Tsar,  and  told  him  what  had  happened. 
•  God,'  he  said,  '  must  have  sent  him  to  give  the  monarch  a 
miraculous  sign  of  His  protection,'  adding,  'now  kill  me!' 
'  Nobody  kills  Envoys,'  responded  Peter  calmly,  and  he  let 
the  fellow  go.^  This  anecdote  may  not  be  absolutely 
authentic  ;  and  it  was  somewhat  unlike  Peter,  I  confess,  to 
allow  such  a  fine  opportunity  for  judicial  proceedings — with 
all  the  paraphernalia  of  examination,  search  for  accomplices, 
and  sittings  in  the  Torture  Chamber — to  escape  him.  He 
may,  indeed,  have  allowed  lavorski,  if  he  were  the  only 
person  clearly  implicated,  to  go  free.  But  the  adventure, — a 
pure  invention,  possibly,  or  at  all  events  an  arrangement  of 
facts, — corresponds  to  an  attitude  of  mind  very  characteristic 
of  the  Sovereign,  and  especially  of  his  later  manner.  I 
frequently  notice  him  giving  himself  airs  of  superior-minded- 
ness,  and  of  a  scornful  philosoj^hy  as  regards  his  own  person, 
and  this  under  the  most  varied  circumstances.  When  he 
returned  from  Warsaw,  after  his  disastrous  campaign  on  the 

*  Bcrgholz,  Ihischitti^s-Afaijfaziti,  vol.  xxi.  p.  202. 

2  Solovief,  vol.  xvi.  jj.  374,  ■'  Colikof,  vol.  x.  p.  176. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES      139 

Pruth,  he  was  complimented  on  his  happy  return,  '  My 
happiness,' was  his  reply,  'amounts  to  this — that  instead  of 
having  received  a  hundred  strokes  with  a  rod,  I  have  only 
been  given  fifty.'  Then,  speaking  to  himself,  '  I  came,  I 
saw,  I  conquered,'  and  as  if  correcting  himself,  'hardly  that ! 
hardly  that !'  Nieplouief,  one  of  his  favourite  pupils,  arrived 
late  for  a  morning  appointment  with  the  Tsar,  in  one  of 
the  naval  workshops.  The  Sovereign  was  waiting  for  him. 
Nieplouief  made  his  excuses.  He  had  sat  up  late  the  night 
before  with  friends.  '  Very  well,  I  forgive  thee,  because  thou 
hast  told  the  truth  ;  and  besides  ' — here  Peter  would  seem 
to  have  reverted  to  his  own  peculiarities,  and  applied  one  of 
the  national  proverbs  to  the  incident — '  is  not  every  man  the 
grandson  of  a  woman  ? '     (Kto  babie  nic  vnouk  ?)  ^ 

Were  these  methods  of  thought,  of  speech,  of  act'on 
natural  to  the  Tsar?  Did  they  really  correspond  to  his 
innate  qualities  of  mind  and  character?  Were  they  not 
rather  a  deliberate  pose,  which  he  would  occasionally  cast 
aside,  through  inadvertence,  caprice,  or  downright  weari- 
ness? The  idea  is  admissible,  at  all  events,  so  frequently 
did  he  belie  and  contradict  his  own  behaviour.  When  he 
made  his  entry  into  Derbent  in  1723  he  was  heard  to  say, 
*  Alexander  built  this  town  ;  Peter  has  taken  it ! '  On  his 
return  from  his  Persian  campaign  he  caused  his  easy  con- 
quest to  be  thus  described  on  one  of  the  innumerable 
triuinphal  arches  already  erected  at  Moscow,  even  before  the 
victory  of  Poltava  : 

'Struxerat  fortis,  sed  fortior  banc  cepit  urbem.' 

That  day,  evidently,  he  had  quite  forgotten  to  be  modest ! 
At  the  taking  of  Narva,  in  1704,  he  forgot  even  to  be 
generous — struck  the  enemy's  commandant,  Horn,  whose 
only  fault  was  that  he  had  defended  the  place  too  bravely  ; 
and  caused  the  corpse  of  his  wife,  who  had  been  killed  in  the 
assault,  to  be  cast  into  the  water. "^  In  17 10,  at  the  taking  of 
Wiborg,  he  granted  the  honours  of  war  to  the  besieged,  and 
then,  when  the  capitulation  was  signed,  he  kept  the  garrison 
prisoners.     This  incident  occurred  again  both  at  Derpt  and 

'  Nieplouiet's  Memoirs  (St.  Petersburg,  1893),  p.  106. 

-  Lundblad,  vol.   i.    p.    17  ;    Adlerfeld,    Histoire  militaire  de   Charles   XII. 
(Paris,  1 741))  vob  ii.  p.  224. 


I40  PETER  THE  GREAT 

at  Rigi.^  Yet  this  same  man,  after  the  battle  of  Twaer- 
mynde  (in  July  17 14),  embraced  Ehrenskold,  anaval  captain, 
and  declared  himself  proud  of  havinjT  had  to  strug^^^le  with 
such  an  adversary.  He  carried  out  the  conditions  of  peace 
signed  with  Sweden,  in  1721,  lo)-ally  enouc^h,  but  the  fashion 
in  which  he  had  opened  hostilities  on  that  occasion  was 
a  very  [pattern  of  knavery.  In  May  1700,  returnine^  to 
Moscow  from  Voroneje,  he  reproached  the  Swedish  Resi- 
dent, Knipercron,  in  the  most  friendly  terms,  with  the  alarm 
apparently  felt  by  his  daughter,  then  paying  a  visit  to 
Voroneje,  as  to  the  imminence  of  a  conflict  between  the  two 
countries.  He  had  done  his  best  to  calm  her.  '  Silly  child,' 
he  had  said,  'how  can  you  imagine  that  I  would  be  the  first 
to  make  an  unjust  war,  and  break  a  peace  which  1  have 
sworn  shall  be  eternal?'  He  embraced  Knipercron  before 
witnesses,  and  made  him  the  most  reassuring  protestations, 
vowing  that  if  the  King  of  Poland  were  to  seize  Riga,  he, 
Peter,  would  take  it  back,  and  restore  it  to  the  Swedes. 
At  that  very  moment  he  had  actually  undertaken  to  join 
Augustus  against  Sweden.  The  common  plan  of  attack 
was  prepared,  and  the  partition  of  the  expected  booty  duly 
arranged.  On  the  8th  of  the  following  August,  having  heard 
from  Oukra'intsof,  his  Envoy  at  Constantinople,  that  the 
signature  of  peace  with  the  Porte,  which  he  had  been  await- 
ing before  throwing  off  the  mask,  was  an  accomplished  fact, 
his  troops  were  instantly  set  in  motion,  and  marched  towards 
Narva.  At  that  very  instant  his  other  Envoy,  Prince  Hilkof, 
was  received  in  audience  by  Charles  XII.,  and  gave  him  fresh 
assurances  of  his  master's  pacific  intentions.^ 

The  essentially  practical  turn  of  his  mind  not  unfrequently 
rendered  it  narrow  and  mean.  When  Leibnitz  proposed  to 
him  to  establish  magnetic  observatories  all  over  his  Em- 
pire, the  great  savant  very  nearly  forfeited  the  Tsar's  good 
graces.^  But  this  did  not  prevent  him  from  endeavouring 
to  discover  the  strait  which  was  later  to  bear  the  name  of 
Behring.  That  was  an  evident  commercial  outlet,  and  there- 
fore a  desirable  end  to  be  attained.    His  economy  amounted 

1  Polevoi",  History  of  Peter  the  Great  (St.  Pcterslnirg,  1843),  vol.  iii.  pp.  79,  89. 
Compare  Peter's  Writ iiii^s  and  Cones f'otideitce,  vol.  iii.  pp.  qg,  and  ill. 

'^  Oustrialof,  vol.  iii.  p.  369;  vol.  iv.  Part  ii.  pp.  159-161  ;  Fryxell,  History 
of  Charles  XII.,  translated  by  Jensen  (Brunswick,  1861),  vol.  i.  p.  78. 

'  Baer,  Peters  Verdieiis'e  iiin  die  Eiiveiteruiiff  dcr  Geographisehen  A'entiiisst 
(St.  Petersburg,  1868),  p.   56. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES      141 

to  absolute  stinginess.  He  would  use  the  mathematical 
instruments,  which  never  left  his  person,  to  measure  the 
daily  consumption  of  the  cheese  served  up  to  him  ;  and  to 
make  amends  for  the  shabby  salary  he  gave  his  chief  cook, 
Velten,  he  turned  the  meals  to  which  he  invited  his  friends 
into  picnics,  at  a  ducat  a  head.^  His  love  of  interfering 
with  everybody  and  everything  made  him  always  willing 
to  act  as  godfather,  but  the  present  he  bestowed  on  the 
child's  mother,  when,  according  to  the  custom  of  the 
country,  he  kissed  her  cheek,  never  exceeded  a  ducat  slipped 
below  her  pillow,  in  the  case  of  an  officer's  wife,  or  a  rouble, 
in  that  of  the  wife  of  a  private  soldier.'^  He  gave  thirty 
roubles  to  a  pilot  named  Antip  Timofieief,  who  saved  his 
life  in  a  hurricane  on  the  White  Sea  in  1694.^  And  this 
was  a  great  effort  of  generosity  on  his  part. 

And  yet  I  believe  he  was  always,  and  everywhere,  per- 
fectly sincere  with  himself,  and  perfectly  natural,  even  in  his 
most  contradictory  moments.  He  was  naturally  diverse  in 
character,  for  reasons  to  which  I  shall  have  to  refer  again, 
and  both  his  constitution  and  his  moral  education  were  per- 
fectly different  from  those  to  which  we  are  accustomed. 
The  country  which  gave  him  birth,  the  race  to  which  he 
belonged,  the  tradition  from  which  he  proceeded,  must 
never  be  forgotten.  Rurik,  Oleg,  Saint  Vladimir,  Sviato- 
polk,  and  Monomachus,  those  heroes  of  Russian  history  and 
legend,  are  great  figures  indeed,  but  they  must  not  be  con- 
founded with  the  historic  and  legendary  glories  of  ancient 
Europe.  They  are  as  different  from  these,  in  character,  as 
they  are  in  name.  There  is  nothing  about  them  of  Bayard 
or  of  Francis  I.  Rather,  with  their  patriarchal  customs,  they 
bear  a  moral  resemblance  to  the  kings  of  Scripture.  The 
Russians  of  the  present  day  will  not,  I  am  sure,  consider 
this  assertion  either  as  a  gratuitous  insult,  nor  as  an  unjusti- 
fiable denial  of  their  possession  of  the  instinct  of  chivalry  ; 
I  would  just  as  soon  deny  the  immense  knowledge,  and  the 
admirable  education,  by  which  so  many  of  them  are  distin- 
guished. But  not  the  less  true  is  it  that,  in  Peter's  days, 
most  Russians  could  not  read,  and  that,  no  knightly  lance 
having  ever  been  broken  in  their  country,  they  passed 
through  the  Middle  Ages  without  any  knowledge  of  chivalry, 
just  as  later  they  passed  through  the  Renaissance  period 

'  Scherer,  vol.  iii.  p.  254.  -  Ibid.  ^  Oustrialof,  vol.  ii.  p.  367. 


142  PETER  THE  GREAT 

without  knowint^  inuch  of  Greek  or  Roman  art.^  The  time 
and  distance  thus  lost  have  indeed  been  successfully  re- 
couped, but  the  fact  remains  that  for  many  years  the  country 
knew  nothiii;T  of  that  brilliant  and  noble-hearted  line  which, 
from  the  days  of  Roland  to  those  of  ]^a)ard,  made  the  word 
honour  s\-nonymous,  in  Western  Europe,  with  fidelit}'  to  a 
plii^hted  promise;  and  further,  that  it  underwent  the  contrary 
influence  of  the  Greek  Empire,  from  which  it  imbibed  not 
only  arts  and  sciences,  habits,  relis^ion,  and  form  of  policy, 
but  also  all  the  Greek  traditions  of  fraud  and  wily  cunnini^. 
I'^vcn  the  le[^endar\'  type  of  womanhood  in  Russia  has  no 
heroically  ideal  quality.  She  is  no  Joan  of  Arc,  the  inspired 
virgin,  driving  a  whole  people  to  victory  through  the  im- 
pulse of  her  faith;  nor  is  she  Wanda,  the  gentle  Polish 
mart\'r,  who  preferred  death  to  espousing  a  foreign  prince 
offensive  to  the  national  instinct.  She  is  Olga,  a  brisk 
and  bold-hearted  lady,  who  hunts,  and  fights,  and  trades, 
triumphs  over  her  enemies  as  much  by  cunning  as  by 
strength,  and,  when  the  Greek  Emperor  would  marry  her 
against  her  will,  dismisses  him  in  most  uncompromising 
fashion.  Peter,  like  Alexander  Xevski, — that  UI}'sses  among 
saints,  as  Custine  called  him,-  a  prince  more  wise  than 
valiant,  a  model  indeed  of  prudence,  but  no  type  of  gener- 
osity and  good  faith, — was  her  true  descendant  ;  and  so  it 
came  to  pass  that  Campredon,  the  French  Envoy,  writing 
in  1725,  concerning  one  of  the  Tsar's  collaborators  in  his 
work,  described  him  thus  :  '  He  is  far  from  upright,  and 
this  it  is  which  acquired  him  the  confidence  of  the  late 
Sovereign.'  ^ 

The  same  apparent  contradictions  are  noticeable  in  Peter's 
daily  morals  and  religion.  Was  he  a  believer?  It  would 
seem  almost  doubtful,  so  off-handedly  did  he  sometimes 
treat  the  ceremonies  and  ministers  of  a  religion  which,  at 
other  times,  he  would  practise  with  the  greatest  fervour. 
When  his  sister  Maria  lay  dying,  he  drove  away  the  monks, 
who  hastened  about  her  to  perform  the  traditional  cere- 
monies, such  as  offering  the  dying  woman  food  and  dnnk 

1  'The  brealh  of  chivalry  never  stirred  the  depths  of  Russia'  (Pierling,  A'l/sxia 
ami  /lie  Holy  See,  p.  189).  The  chapter  in  this  interesting;  work,  entitled,  'The 
Renaissance  in  Moscow,'  is  quite  conchusive,  as  re  ;ards  my  view  of  this  subject. 

2  Ntissia,  vol  i.  p.  265. 

8  May  3,  1725,  Sbornik.  vol.  Iviii.  p.  255. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES      143 

of  various  kinds,  and  inquiring  plaintively  whether  she 
desired  to  leave  life  because  she  had  not  enough  to  eat  ! 
He  would  do  away  with  all  such  mummeries  !  Let  it  be 
admitted,  then,  that  he  clings  to  simple  faith,  and  will  have 
no  superstitions.  But  yet  I  note  his  habit  of  writing  down  his 
dreams.^  The  English  Envoy,  Whitworth,  in  his  despatch 
of  25th  March  1712,  speaks  of  a  victorious  struggle  with  a 
tiger  during  the  Tsars  sleep,  which  has  strengthened  him  in 
his  warlike  intentions.^  At  the  same  time,  all  proprietx', 
morals,  good  or  bad,  civility,  and  decency,  seem  to  have  been 
a  dead-letter  to  him.  In  1723,  lajoujinski,  one  of  the  par- 
venus by  whom  he  was  surrounded,  took  it  into  his  head  to 
cast  off  his  wife,  with  whom  he  had  no  fault  to  find,  and  by 
whom  he  had  growr-up  children,  to  marry  the  daughter  of 
the  Chancellor,  Golovkin.  As  the  wife  on  one  side,  and 
the  Chancellor  on  the  other,  objected  violently,  Peter,  who 
liked  the  plan,  because  it  lowered  the  ancient  aristocracy  for 
the  benefit  of  the  new,  intervened  without  hesitation.  The 
woman  was  thrown  into  a  convent  ;  the  father  was  ordered 
to  give  his  consent.  The  Tsar  declared  the  first  marriage 
null  and  void,  and  undertook  to  bear  all  the  expenses  of  the 
second.  From  the  respect  thus  shown  for  family  ties  his 
regard  for  the  rest  of  the  moral  law  may  easily  be  argued.^ 
At  Berlin  in  1718,  during  a  visit  to  a  collection  of  ancient 
medals  and  statues,  his  attention  was  attracted  to  the 
figure  of  a  heathen  divinity,  one  of  those  with  which  the 
ancient  Romans  frequently  adorned  the  nuptial-chamber. 
He  beckoned  to  the  Tsarina,  and  commanded  her  to  kiss 
the  figure.  When  she  appeared  to  object,  he  shouted 
brutally,  '  Kop  ab '  ('Head  off'),  giving  her  to  understand 
the  risk  entailed  by  disobedience;  after  which  he  requested 
the  King,  his  host,  to  present  him  with  that  rare  objet 
d'art,  as  well  as  with  several  other  curiosities,  includ- 
ing an  amber  cabinet,  which,  according  to  the  Margrave 
of  Baircuthi,  had  cost  an  enormous  sum  of  money.  In 
the  same  way,  having  remarked  a  mummy  in  a  Natural 
History  Museum  at  Copenhagen,  he  manifested  his  inten- 
tion of  appropriating  it.     The  head  of  the  museum  referred 

^   Siemievski,  SIoVo  i  Dielo,  p.  273,  etc. 
-  Sbornik,  vol.  Ixi.  p.  167. 

^  Campredon's  De5;patch,   dated   March   22,    1723,   French    Foreign    Office; 
Dolgorouki's  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  17. 


144  PETER  THE  GREAT 

the  matter  to  his  royal  master,  who  answered  by  a  polite 
refusal.  The  mummy  was  an  exceptionally  handsome  and 
larj^e  one:  there  was  not  another  like  it  in  Germany.  Peter 
went  back  to  the  museum,  fell  on  that  mummy,  tore  off  its 
nose,  mutilated  it  in  all  directions,  and  then  took  his  de- 
])arture,  sayint^,  '  Now  you  may  keep  it  ! '  ^  On  his  departure 
from  the  Golden  Ring  Hotel  at  Dresden,  in  171 1,  he  took 
down  with  his  own  hands,  and  would  have  carried  off,  in 
s[)itc  of  the  servants'  opposition,  the  valuable  curtains  sent 
by  the  Saxon  Court,  to  decorate  his  apartments.  At  Dantzic, 
in  1716,  finding  himself  inconvenienced  by  a  draught  of  cold 
air  during  the  performance  of  divine  service,  he  stretched 
out  his  hand,  without  a  word,  snatched  the  wig  off  the 
head  of  the  Burgomaster,  who  stood  beside  him,  and  put  it 
on  his  own.'^ 

I  do  not  believe  that  Baron  von  Printzen  was  ever  obliged 
to  climb  to  the  top  of  a  mast  to  present  his  credentials  to  the 
Russian  sovereign,  who  was  busy  in  the  rigging,  and  would 
not  allow  any  interruption  of  that  work.  This  anecdote 
— also  related  by  the  great  Frederick  to  Voltaire  ^ — appears 
to  me  to  stamp  one  of  its  tellers — I  know  not  which — as  a 
downright  liar.  Baron  von  Printzen  arrived  in  Russia  in 
1700.  At  that  period,  St.  Petersburg — the  only  place  where 
he  could  have  met  with  such  a  reception — had  no  existence. 
There  was  no  shipbuilding  there  till  1704,  when  von  Printzen 
had  already  been  succeeded  in  his  office  by  Keyserling. 
Further,  the  envoy  of  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg,  and 
future  King  of  Prussia,  having  started  from  Berlin  on  the 
I  2th  of  October,  must  have  arrived  at  his  post  in  the  very 
heart  of  a  Russian  winter,  a  season  which  reduces  all  rigging 
operations  in  the  open  air  to  a  condition  of  forced  idleness. 
On  the  other  hand,  Campredon's  assertion  that  when,  on  the 
occasion  of  the  peace  negotiations  with  Sweden,  in  1 721,  he 
asked  for  an  audience  of  the  Tsar,  Peter  came  from  the 
Admiralty  to  receive  him,  wearing  a  sailor's  blouse,  seems 
to  me  worthy  of  belief. 

This  entire  absence  of  scruple,  this  disdain  for  the  usual 
rules  of  conduct,  and  scorn  of  propriety,  were  accompanied 

^  Scherer,  vol.  ii.  p.  15. 

*  I'olevoi,  vol.  iv.  p.  4.  There  .ire  several  versions  of  this  anecdote;  see 
Scherer,  vol.  ii.  p.  77. 

'  Voltaire's  Works,  vol.  x.  p.  71. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     145 

by  a  very  deep  feeling,  and  absolute  respect,  for  law,  for 
duty,  and  for  discipline.  Why  and  how  did  this  come  to  pass? 
Doubtless  because,  in  this  case,  we  have  something  beyond  a 
mere  unthinking  negation  of  the  indispensable  foundations 
of  any  social  edifice ;  in  spite  of  a  large  amount  of  caprice  and 
whimsicality,  which  gave  birth  to  many  inconsistencies,  a 
more  worthy  motive  did  exist  in  Peter's  mind.  He  had 
undertaken  to  reform  the  existence  of  a  whole  people,  whose 
scruples  and  prejudices  made  up  a  good  half  of  their  religion 
and  morality.  He  regarded  these,  with  a  good  deal  of 
correctness,  as  the  principal  obstacle  to  any  progress,  and 
therefore,  very  logically,  he  never  lost  an  opportunity  of 
warring  against  them.  When  piloting  his  flotilla  of  galleys 
on  the  waters  of  the  Don,  in  1699,  he  noticed  a  Dutch  sailor 
enjoying  a  fricassee  of  tortoises,  caught  in  the  river.  He 
mentioned  it  to  his  Russians,  and  there  was  a  general  outcry 
of  disgust.  Such  food  appeared  to  them  abominable  and 
unclean.  Straightway  his  cook  had  orders  to  serve  the 
horrid  dish  at  his  own  table,  under  the  guise  of  chicken. 
Shei'n  and  Saltykof,  who  dined  on  it,  fainted  away  when,  by 
their  master's  order,  the  plumage  of  the  bird  they  believed 
themselves  to  have  devoured  was  respectfully  presented  to 
them. 

Peter  felt  himself  called  to  clear  the  national  conscience  of 
the  dross  left  by  centuries  of  barbarous  ignorance.  But  he 
was  too  impetuous,  too  rough  and  coarse,  personally,  and, 
above  all,  too  passionately  eager,  to  perform  this  work  with 
real  discernment.  He  hit  out  wildly,  in  all  directions. 
Thus,  even  while  he  corrected,  he  depraved.  The  mighty 
teacher  was  one  of  the  greatest  demoralisers  of  the  human 
species.  Modern  Russia,  which  owes  him  all  its  greatness, 
owes  him  most  of  its  vices  also. 


Ill 

His  genius,  indisputable  as  it  is,  and  huge  as  was  its  field 
of  action,  does  not  give  us  the  impression  of  taking  in  vast 
spaces  and  mighty  wholes  in  one  swift  lightning  glance.  It 
rather  gives  us  the  idea — so  great  is  its  comprehension  of, 
and  passion  for,  detail — of  a  multitude  of  glances,  simul- 


146  PETER  THE  GREAT 

tancously  fixed  on  a  variety  of  objects.  And,  indeed, 
Peter's  general  ideas,  wlien  such  become  apparent  to  us, 
always  strike  us  as  being  somewhat  vague  and  inconsistent. 
His  plans  and  combinations  are  very  apt  to  hick  accuracy 
and  precision,  and,  when  his  gaze  turns  on  a  distant  object, 
liis  sight  would  seem  to  grow  confused.  Intellectually 
speaking,  he  suffered  from  short-sight.  Of  this  the  building 
of  St.  Petersburg  is  sufficient  proof.  Here  execution  came 
before  conception.  The  plans  were  left  for  future  considera- 
tion ;  and  thus  there  came  to  be  quarters  without  streets, 
streets  without  issue,  and  a  port  without  water.  The  usual 
instinct  of  that  lightning  mind  was  to  act  at  once — leaving 
reflection  to  a  later  date — without  taking  time  to  discuss 
projects,  so  long  as  they  seemed  attractive,  nor  weigh  means, 
provided  these  lay  close  at  hand.  Peter's  power  of  judg- 
ing his  collaborators,  which,  according  to  his  panegyrists, 
amounted  to  a  sort  of  divination,  would  seem  to  be  open  to 
much  discussion.  The  means  he  employed,  such  as  taking 
hold  of  the  hair  of  the  individuals  he  thought  of  selecting, 
lifting  their  heads,  and  gazing  for  an  instant  straight  into 
their  eyes — those  summary  processes  which  roused  the  ad- 
miration of  even  so  serious  an  historian  as  Solovief^ — are 
only  an  additional  proof  of  that  superficiality  which  I  have 
already  pointed  out,  as  being  the  essence  of  all  his  know- 
ledge and  all  his  aptitudes.  He  had  not  the  smallest 
knowledge  of  psychology.  One  day  he  found,  in  the  house 
of  a  schoolmaster,  a  servant  girl,  who  took  his  fancy.  He 
made  her  his  mistress,  until  he  could  make  her  his  Empress  ; 
and,  forthwith,  he  proposed  to  make  the  schoolmaster 
the  founder  of  the  national  education.  That  is  the  plain 
story  of  Catherine  and  of  Gliick.  The  woman  began  by 
wandering  from  camp  to  camp,  the  prey  of  the  officers 
and  soldiers  of  her  future  lord  ;  the  man,  a  humble  pastor 
in  a  Livonian  village,  began  by  teaching  the  little  Russians 
confided  to  his  care  to  sing  the  Lutheran  Psalms.  The 
Tsar,  on  becoming  aware  of  it,  closed  the  school  and  dis- 
missed the  master,  l^ut  the  national  education  proceeded 
no  further. 

One  day,  at  the  launch  of  a  new  ship,  a  sight  which 
always  heated  his  imagination,  Peter  fell  to  descanting  on 
historical    philosophy.       Recalling    the    march    of  civilising 

'  Sliidics  (18S2),  ]).  205. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     147 

culture  in  Europe,  from  its  Greek  cradle,  and  on  through  its 
Italian  glories,  he  finally  expressed  his  conviction  that 
Russia's  turn  had  come.  '  Let  us  hope,'  he  said,  '  that  within 
a  few  years  we  shall  be  able  to  humiliate  neighbouring 
countries  by  placing  our  own  on  the  highest  pinnacle  of 
glory.'  His  conception  of  civilisation  is  here  clearly  be- 
tra\-ed — the  sentiment  of  a  manufacturer  in  strong  competi- 
tion with  the  factory  over  the  way.  He  had  too  little 
cultivation  to  analyse  and  understand  the  elements  of  the 
superiority  of  those  foreign  rivals  whom  he  envied,  ai  d 
desired  to  excel.  All  he  saw  was  the  exterior,  and  therefore 
he  esteemed  the  whole  below  its  value.  His  intelligence, 
vast  and  comprehensive  though  it  was,  shows,  on  one  side,  a 
certain  quality  of  limitation.  It  is  radically  inaccessible  to 
any  abstract  conception.  Hence  he  was  very  unskilful  in 
judging  any  series  of  events,  in  deducing  the  consequences 
of  a  particular  point  of  departure,  in  tracing  effects  back  to 
their  causes.  He  was  quick  to  seize  the  practical  advan- 
tages of  civilisation,  but  he  never  had  any  suspicion  of  the 
necessary  premises  of  all  civilising  undertakings.  He  was 
like  a  man  who  would  begin  to  build  a  house  from  the 
roof,  or  who  would  work  at  the  foundations  and  summit 
of  an  edifice,  at  one  and  the  same  time.  His  being  a 
good  carpenter,  or  even  a  fair  naval  engineer,  did  not 
suffice  to  set  the  moral  forces  of  his  people  in  organic 
motion. 

To  sum  it  up,  Peter  possessed  more  ingenuity  than  actual 
genius.  His  government  was  the  handiwork  of  an  artisan 
rather  than  that  of  an  artist,  of  an  active  official  rather 
than  of  a  statesman.  He  had  an  extraordinary  gift  of 
manipulating  men  and  things  ;  and  his  surprising  dexterity 
in  this  respect,  coupled  with  a  marvellous  power  of  assimila- 
tion, is  still  noticeable  in  almost  any  modern  Russian,  who 
will  come  from  the  banks  of  the  Don,  where  he  never  saw  a 
machine  nor  a  factory,  and,  after  a  few  weeks  spent  in  some 
western  industrial  centre,  will  be  perfectly  informed  on  the 
latest  improvements  of  modern  machincr\-,  and  well  able 
to  apply  them  in  his  own  country.  But  Peter  had  not  an 
original  idea  of  his  own,  and  cared  little  for  originality  in 
other  people.  He  did  not  even  attempt  to  put  the  elements, 
external  or  internal,  which  he  used  in  his  attempts  at 
political  or    social    construction,   into    independent    motion. 


148  PETER  THE  GREAT 

His  work  was  a  mosaic,  a  mere  patchwork.  Even  this 
imitation  of  the  foreigner  was  not,  in  itself,  his  own  original 
invention.  It  had  been  the  constant  rule  in  Russia  since 
the  days  of  Boris  Godunof.  All  he  did  was  to  substitute  a 
torrent,  a  cataract,  a  perfect  avalanche,  of  German,  Dutch, 
English,  French,  and  Italian  products,  for  the  little  stream 
of  importation  which  had  passed  from  Poland  and  slowly 
filtered  into  the  arid  Russian  soil.  His  work — I  say  it  again — 
was  a  mechanical  performance, — superficial  always,  and  far 
from  intelligent,  sometimes, — directed  solely  to  external 
ends,  without  a  thought  of  internal  possibilities.  It  had  been 
begun  with  so  much  carelessness  as  to  the  real  nature,  and 
inner  values,  of  the  materials  selected,  that  its  end  and  object 
perforce  escaped  the  understanding  of  the  nation  called 
upon  to  perform  it.  It  was  heterogeneous,  incongruous,  and 
ill-arranged,  useless  in  many  particulars,  harmful  in  others  : 
a  Dutch  fleet,  a  German  army,  and  a  Swedish  Government, 
the  morals  of  Versailles,  and  the  lagoons  of  Amsterdam — all 
included  in  the  same  series  of  borrowed  treasures.  Not  a 
perception  of  the  ideal  side  of  the  undertaking,  nothing  but 
a  perpetual  bondage  to  the  tyranny  of  preconceived  ideas. 
When  he  was  informed  that  the  canals  he  had  cut  through 
the  Island  of  St.  Basil  ( Vassili-Ostrof) — the  only  scrap  of 
firm  ground  in  his  new  capital — were  useless,  and  too  narrow 
for  traffic,  his  first  thought  was  to  hurry  off  to  the  Dutch 
Resident,  borrow  a  map  of  Amsterdam,  and  compare  the 
dimensions,  compass  in  hand. 

Yet  I  have  said  he  was  an  idealist,  and  I  hold  to  that 
opinion.  An  idealist  he  was,  in  virtue  of  that  part  of  his 
nature  which  escaped  from  the  chances  and  incoherence  of 
his  daily  inspiration.  An  idealist — after  his  own  fashion — 
by  the  general  subordination  of  his  thought,  and  the  constant 
sacrifice  of  his  own  person,  to  an  end  without  aiu'  material 
or  immediate  tangibilit\'.  I  mean  the  splendid  destiny  to 
which  he  believed  his  country  appointed.  Not,  indeed,  that, 
in  the  limited  range  of  his  mental  sight,  and  amid  the  passion 
and  perpetual  tumult  of  his  career,  this  end  ever  took  very 
precise  shape.  That  famous  Will,  which  has  been  the  theme 
of  so  many  ingenious  politicians,  was,  as  I  shall  later  prove, 
a  mere  hoax,  with  which  he  had  nothing  to  do.  The 
far  horizon  towards  which  his  course  was  shaped  loomed 
up  before  him,  uncertain    and    confused  :    like  a  camp,  it 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     149 

may  be,  filled  with  the  clatter  of  armed  men,  or  else  a  busy 
fruitful  hive — a.  centre  of  life,  at  all  events — industrial, 
intelligent,  even  artistic.  He  dreamed  indeed,  but  with 
wide-open  eyes  ;  and,  with  all  the  positiveness  of  his  mind 
and  nature,  he  ended — so  great  was  his  effort,  so  mighty  his 
faith — by  almost  touching  and  possessing  this  phantom 
dream  of  his.  He  went  a  step  farther.  He  would  ensure 
the  continuity  of  this  hallucination  of  what  was  to  be.  that 
far-distant,  tremendous  destiny,  and,  like  the  splendid 
despot  that  he  was,  he  drove  it  into  the  very  marrow  of  his 
subjects'  bones — beat  it  in  mercilessly,  with  blows  of  sticks, 
and  hatchet  strokes.  He  evolved  a  race  of  eager  vision- 
aries out  of  a  people  of  mere  brutes.  He  left  something 
better  behind  him  than  a  mere  legend.  He  left  a  faith, 
which,  unlike  other  faiths,  is  spiritualised,  instead  of  material- 
ised, in  the  simple  minds  which  have  enshrined  it.  '  Holy 
Russia'  of  this  present  day — practical,  brutal,  and  mystic, 
above  all  things,  even  as  he  was, — standing  ready,  like  a 
many-headed  Messiah,  to  regenerate  Ancient  Europe,  even 
by  submerging  her,  is  Peter's  child. 

An  idealist,  yes  !  A  dreamer  too,  a  great  poet  in  active 
life,  was  this  horny-handed  woodcutter !  Napoleon,  the 
soldier  mathematician,  with  conceptions  less  extravagant 
than  Peter's,  with  a  more  judicious  sense  of  possibilities,  and 
a  more  real  grasp  of  the  future,  was  an  idealist  too. 


IV 

One  of  the  most  sharply  marked  and  peculiar  traits  in 
Peter's  character — a  character  offering  contrasts  so  strong  as 
to  endue  it,  from  certain  points  of  view,  with  an  appearance 
of  absolute  deformity — is  the  intense  and  never-ceasing 
strain  of  buffoonery,  which  sets  an  harlequin's  cap  on  that 
imperious  brow,  twists  those  harsh  features  into  a  merry- 
andrew's  grin,  and  everywhere  and  always — through  all  the 
vicissitudes  of  a  career  crammed  with  great  events  and 
mighty  actions — mingles  the  solemn  with  the  grotesque,  and 
carries  farce  even  into  the  region  of  absolute  tragedy.  This 
is  betrayed  very  early,  quite  in  the  dawn  of  Peter's  reign,  by 
the   disguises  adopted    by  the  young  ruler,  from  the  very 


ISO  PETER  THE  GREAT 

outset,  for  himself,  and  imj)oscd,  by  him,  on  his  friends  and 
collaborators.  So  early  as  1695,  Prince  Kcodor  Romodan- 
ovski  united  the  title  of  King  of  Presburg  with  that  01 
General.  And  even  when  writing  to  him  on  the  most  serious 
subjects,  Peter  never  failed  to  address  him  as  ^  Min  Her 
Kcnic/i,'  and  to  sign  himself 'Your  Majesty's  very  obedient 
Slave,  Kncch  Piter  Koniojidor, '  or  else,  '  /r  Daheleix  Knch, ' 
which  last  formula  was  unintelligible  to  any  one  but  himself. 
He  lost  no  opportunity  of  expressing  his  resolution  to  shed 
the  last  drop  of  his  blood  in  the  service  of  this  mock 
sovereign.  Meanwhile  he  had  created  Zotof,  his  former  tutor, 
Archbishop  of  Presburg,  Patriarch  of  the  banks  of  the 
laou/ca,  and  of  the  whole  Kimkonl  (a  name  of  German  origin 
given  to  the  quarter  known  as  the  German  suburb).  Tihon 
Nikititch  Strcshnief  was  made  Po{)e.  He  was  addressed  as 
'  Most  Holy  Father,'  and  '  Your  Holiness,'  and  all  his  replies, 
whether  they  were  business  letters  orofacial  reports,  were,  by 
order,  couched  in  the  same  style.  Romodanovski  addressed 
his  letters  to  '  Bovibardicr  Peter  AlcxicicvitcJi,''  and  closed  them 
with  a  simple  formula  of  politeness,  appropriate  from  a 
.sovereign  to  a  subject.  In  May  1703,  after  the  taking  of 
Nienschanz,  Peter,  acting  as  secretary  to  Field-Marshal 
Sheremetief,  drew  up,  with  his  own  hands,  a  report  to  the 
King — in  other  words,  to  Romodanovski — informing  him 
that  the  Field-Marshal  had  promoted  him  and  Menshikof  to 
be  Knights  of  St.  Andrew,  'subject  to  His  Majesty's  appro- 
bation.' And  so  settled  was  the  determination  to  take  this 
burlesque  seriously,  that  it  actually  survived  the  original 
actors  in  it.  In  17 19,  when  Feodor  Romodanovski  died,  the 
title  and  privileges  of  his  imaginary  sovereignty  passed 
to  his  son  Ivan,  and  Peter,  in  an  autogra]jh  letter  con- 
gratulating Captain  Sieniavin  upon  a  victory  won  at  sea, 
assures  him  of  the  satisfaction  this  success  will  cause  'His 
Majesty.'  ^ 

On  the  3rd  of  February  1703,  he  writes  to  Menshikof — 
calling  him  'My  heart' — to  inform  him  of  the  opening 
of  a  fort,  built  on  a  property  he  had  lately  bestowed  on 
him,  and  christened  under  the  name  of  Oranicnburg — the 
present  Ranenburg,  in  the  Government  of  Riazan.  The 
Metropolitan  of  Kief  presided  at  the  ceremony.  This 
mock  Metropolitan  was  Mussine-Pushkin,  one  of  the  real 

1  Golikof,  vol.  vii.  p.  264. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     151 

sovereign's  boon  companions,  and  by  no  means  one  of  the 
least  debauched.  A  plan  of  the  fortress,  showing  the  names 
given  to  the  bastions,  was  enclosed  in  this  letter.  The  first 
bastion  was  baptized  with  brandy,  the  second  with  lemonade, 
the  third  with  Rhine  wine,  the  fourth  with  beer,  and  the  fifth 
with  hydromel.  The  score,  or  thereabouts,  of  persons  who 
made  up  the  party,  amongst  whom  were  the  Prussian  and 
Polish  Envo}'s,  Keyserling  and  Koenigseck,  an  English 
merchant  named  Stiles,  and  several  important  Russians, 
appended  their  signatures  to  this  letter,  substituting  joking 
sobriquets  for  their  real  names.  Menshikof's  reply  was 
couched  in  a  serious  strain,  for  the  Swedes  were  giving  him 
much  trouble,  and  he  was  in  no  laughing  mood  ;  but  he 
did  not  forget  to  express  his  thanks  to  his  august  friend  for 
the  honour  he  had  done  him,  by  getting  drunk  upon  his 
property. 

In  1709,  when  the  victory  of  Poltava  was  to  be  celebrated 
at  Moscow,  a  huge  wooden  palace  was  built  on  the  Tsaritsijie 
Lougiie\  Romodanovski,  enthroned  in  the  Hall  of  Audience, 
and  surrounded  by  the  principal  dignitaries  of  the  Court, 
summoned  the  leaders  of  the  victorious  army  to  present  their 
reports  on  the  incidents  and  happy  issue  of  the  battle.  The 
first  to  advance  was  Sheremetief:  '  By  the  grace  of  God  and 
the  good  fortune  of  your  Cesarean  Majesty,  I  have  overcome 
the  Swedish  army.'  '  By  the  grace  of  God,  and  the  good 
fortune  of  your  Caesarean  Majesty,'  said  Menshikof,  in  his 
turn,  '  I  have  taken  General  Loewenhaupt  and  his  army 
prisoners  at  Perevolotchna.'  Last  of  all  came  Peter  :  '  By 
the  grace  of  God,  and  the  good  fortune  of  your  Caesarean 
Majesty,  I  and  my  regiment  have  fought  and  conquered  at 
Poltava.'  All  three  presented  the  mock  Ca,\sar  with  the 
regulation  reports,  and  retired,  bowing.  After  which,  the 
astounded  Swedish  prisoners  were  brought  in,  and  marched 
past  the  throne.  A  banquet,  presided  over  by  this  strange 
substitute  for  the  Sovereign,  who  was  seated  upon  a  raised 
dais,  and  condescended  to  summon  Colonel  Peter  Alexie- 
ievitch  to  his  own  table,  closed  the  ceremony.^ 

Eftbrts  have  been  made  to  justify  these  pasquinades — 
almost  revolting,  at  such  a  moment,  and  in  such  serious  cir- 
cumstances— by  various  interpretations  of  their  meaning. 
Some  will  have  it  that  this  was  Peter's  method  of  inculcating, 

'  Golikof,  vol.  xi.  p.  567,  etc. 
II 


152  PETER  THE  GREAT 

by  his  own  example,  the  principle  of  subordination  which  he 
desired  to  instil  into  his  subjects.  Others,  that  it  was  an 
attempt  to  destroy  all  memory  of  the  MicstniicJiestvo,  by  a 
deliberate  confusinn^  of  all  ranks,  and  every  precedence. 
Such  ideas  ma\-,  indeed,  have  occurred  to  him.  He  always 
showed  the  deepest  intuition  of  the  true  foundation  of  all 
real  discipline — the  sense  that  he  who  will  be  obeyed  must 
know  how  to  obey — that  he  who  desires  service  must  him- 
self learn  how  to  serve.  The  expressions,  '  I  serve,'  '  since 
I  have  been  in  the  service,'  were  very  habitual  with  him  ;  and 
not  less  evident  and  endurini:^  was  his  constant  desire  to 
familiarise  iiis  subjects,  to  fill  their  e)-cs  and  their  souls,  with 
that  great  ideal,  to  which  he  sacrificed  his  own  life,  and  to 
which  everything  was  to  be  sacrificed — to  which  all  things 
must  bow,  and,  in  comparison  with  which,  all  else,  even  the 
Tsar  himself,  was  to  be  accounted  nothing.  Such  a  design 
may  have  existed,  at  the  back  of  such  scenic  effects  as  I 
have  just  described.  But  the  means  used  by  Peter  for  the 
furtherance  of  this  object,  proceeded  solely  and  directly 
from  his  whimsicality,  his  love  of  disguises,  of  humbug  and 
mystification,  and  from  a  licence  of  imagination  which  no 
sentiment  of  propriety,  of  respect,  or  even  of  self-respect, 
could  keep  within  bounds.  It  should  not  be  forgotten  that 
masquerades  were  at  that  time  a  great  fashion  in  western 
countries,  and  they  had  long  had  a  settled  home  in  Russia. 
Ivan  the  Terrible  delighted  in  them.  Peter  thus  merely 
followed  the  prevailing  custom,  which  his  inherent  prone- 
ness  to  exaggeration,  of  view  and  of  practical  action,  led  him 
to  carry  to  so  extreme  a  pitch,  that  the  means  he  employed 
finally  far  exceeded,  and  even  ran  counter  to,  his  original 
intention. 

Nothing  but  the  extreme  docility  of  a  national  tempera- 
ment, long  since  broken  in  to  every  form  of  despotism,  saved 
the  very  idea  of  sovereignty  from  fading  out  of  the  public 
mind  at  this  period.  This  will  appear  especially  true 
when  we  consider  that  certain  of  the  wildest  and  least  justi- 
fiable of  the  sovereign's  disguises  lowered  human  dignity,  in 
his  own  person,  to  the  most  abject  and  shameful  level.  In 
1698,  just  after  his  first  foreign  journey,  he  took  part  in  a 
procession,  in  which  the  mock  patriarch,  Zotof,  wearing  a 
mitre  decorated  with  a  figure  of  Bacchus,  led  a  troop  of 
disorderly  bacchantes,  their  heads  adorned  with  bundles  of 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     153 

liglited  tobacco  instead  of  vine-leaves.^  Here,  of  course, 
we  have  an  allu.<-ion  to  the  monopoly,  lately  acquired  by 
the  Marquis  of  Caermarthen,  and,  therefore,  a  political 
intention.  But  the  manner  selected  for  intimatin;^  this  does 
not  strike  us  as  being  any  the  less  objectionable.  In  the  same 
year,  on  the  very  day  after  that  on  which  one  hundred  and 
fifty  Stn'/isj/ha.d  died, in  horrible  tortures,  Peter's  cheerfulness 
was  unabated.  He  kept  the  Brandenburg  Envoy,  whom  lie 
liad  received  in  farewell  audience,  to  dinner,  and  regaled  him, 
at  dessert,  with  a  scene  of  bufifooner}',  during  which  the  mock 
patriarch,  having  bestowed  his  benediction  on  all  present, 
with  two  crossed  pipes,  gave  the  signal  for  the  dances  to 
begin.  The  Tsarevitch  Alexis,  and  his  sister  Nathalia, 
watched  this  entertainment  from  behind  a  hanging  which 
was  pushed  aside  for  their  convenience."'^ 

Twenty  years  later  the  same  thing  was  going  on.  During 
the  carnival  of  1724,  a  troop  of  sixty  or  seventy  individuals — 
gentlemen,  officers,  priests  (including  the  Tsar's  Confessor, 
Nadajinski),  burghers,  and  common  people,  amongst  whom 
one,  a  sailor,  walked  on  his  hands  with  his  head  down, 
making  strange  faces  and  wild  contortions,  attended  the 
Sovereign  through  the  streets.  These  people,  chosen  from 
amongst  the  greatest  drunkards  and  vilest  debauchees  in  the 
country,  constituted  a  regular  brotherhood,  which  met  on 
fixed  days,  under  the  name  of  'Council  which  knows  no 
sadness'  {Bezpietchalnyi  sobor),?iX\d  indulged  in  orgies  which 
occasionally  lasted  for  twenty-four  hours.  Ladies  were 
invited  to  these  gatherings,  and  the  most  important  officials, 
ministers,  generals,  and  grave  and  aged  men,  were  frequently 
obliged  to  take  part  in  them.  In  January  1725,  Matthew 
Golovin,  a  man  of  illustrious  family,  eighty  years  of  age, 
was  ordered  to  appear  in  one  of  these  processions,  dressed 
as  a  devil.  He  refused,  and,  at  a  word  from  Peter,  he  w  as 
seized,  stripped  naked,  a  cap  with  pasteboard  horns  was 
put  upon  his  head,  and  he  was  forced  to  sit,  for  a  full  hour, 
on  the  frozen  Neva.  He  caught  a  violent  fever,  of  which 
he  died.^ 

Not  an  event,  during  the  whole  course  of  the  reign,  from 
the  Peace  of  Nystadt,  to  the  wedding  of  a  favourite  dwarf, 
but  was   made  the  pretext    for    fresh    doings   of  the   kind. 

»  Korb,  p.  115.  *  Ibid.,  p.  liS. 

"  Dolgoroukof,  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  136. 


154  PETER  THK  GRKAT 

When  the  dwarf  died,  Peter  ranL,^cd  maskers  round  liis 
cofTin,  even  as  he  had  aheady  rant;cd  them  round  his 
marriage-bed.  Every  dwarf  in  St.  Petersburg  thus  appeared, 
in  1724,  at  the  funeral  of  one  of  their  number,  all  of  them 
dressed  in  black,  and  following  a  tiny  hearse,  drawn  by  six 
little  Spanish  horses.  The  same  )'ear,  during  a  masquerade 
which  lasted  a  week,  senators  were  forbidden  to  unmask, 
even  in  the  council  chamber,  during  the  hours  devoted  to 
important  business.^ 

Peter  had  a  great  number  of  Court  jesters  or  fools. 
Strahlenberg^  gives  a  list,  which  contains  many  names 
possessing  other  claims  to  importance.  Zotof,  Tourguenief, 
Shanskoi,  Lanin,  Shahofskoi,  Tarakanof,  Kirsantievitch, 
and  Oushakof,  the  most  admired  of  all.  These  names  can 
be  accounted  for.  Plogcl,  in  his  history  of  Court  jesters,' 
divides  those  who  surrounded  the  Tsar  into  four  categories. 
Firstly,  fools  by  natural  infirmity,  in  whom  the  Sovereign 
finds  amusement.  Sccojidly,  fools  by  punishment,  con- 
demned to  play  the  part,  for  having  failed  in  wisdom,  in 
their  former  functions, — this  was  the  case  of  Oushakof, 
who,  as  a  captain  in  a  guard  regiment,  had  been  sent  from 
Smolensk  to  Kief  with  important  despatches,  reached  the 
town  during  the  night,  found  the  gates  shut,  and,  when  there 
was  some  delay  about  opening  them,  turned  round,  rode 
back  to  Smolensk,  and  complained  of  his  discomfiture  to 
his  commanding  officer.  Thirdly,  simulated  fools,  who 
shammed  mental  disturbance  to  escape  death,  after  having 
been  implicated  in  some  plot — a  stratagem  which  did  not 
always  impose  upon  Peter,  who,  however,  judged  the 
self-chosen  punishment  of  the  poor  wretches  sufficient. 
Fourlhly,  fools  by  lack  of  education.  Peter,  who  was  in  the 
habit  of  sending  a  great  number  of  young  men  abroad, 
examined  them,  when  they  came  back,  as  to  the  information 
acquired.  Those  who  did  not  give  him  satisfaction  escaped 
severer  punishment  by  assuming  the  cap  and  bells.  In  the 
great  Tsar's  time  these  private  jesters  had  a  certain  part 
assigned  them,  and  a  political  importance  of  their  own. 
They    supplemented    his    police   force.      They    boldly    and 

'  Bergholz,  Buschhiqs-Afai^aziii,  vol.  xxii.  p.  436,  etc. 

2  Das  Nord  und  Oest/h/ie  'J'heil  von  Europe,  tittd  Asia  (Stockliolm,    1 730), 

p.  231;. 

»  Gcschkhte  der  Hofiiaryti  (Licgnilz,  17S9).  p.  409. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     155 

loudly  reported  the  evil  deeds  of  his  ministers,  at  his  table, 
relating  their  thefts  and  their  embezzlements.  Peter  even 
occasionally  deputed  them  to  avenge  him.  On  these  occa- 
sions they  would  carefully  contrive  to  make  the  guilty 
person  drunk,  would  pick  a  quarrel  with  him,  and  then 
thrash  him  soundly.^  Strahlenberg's  list  does  not  give  the 
names  of  the  two  most  famous  members  of  this  burlesque 
and  pitiful  legion  :  the  Russian,  Balakircf,  and  the  Portu- 
guese, D'Acosta,  a  relation,  doubtless,  of  the  celebrated  con- 
vert Uriel.  To  this  last,  Peter  confided  the  functions  of 
director-general  and  organiser  of  the  revels,  and  Head  of  the 
staff  emplo}'ed  in  them.  In  1713  he  gave  him  the  title  of 
Count  and  Han  of  the  Samo}'edes.  This  last  promotion 
was  made  the  occasion  of  a  series  of  burlesque  ceremonies, 
in  which  several  families  of  real  Samoyedes,  brought  for 
the  purpose  from  the  depths  of  Siberia,  were  forced  to  figure. 
Amongst  them  appeared  one  of  the  Empress's  cooks,  dis- 
guised as  a  Samoyede,  with  a  huge  pair  of  stag's  horns 
on  his  head,  and  girt  with  a  yellow  ribbon,  to  which  was 
suspended  a  medal,  bearing  the  name  '  Actaeon  '  engraved 
upon  it.  Peter  occasionally  associated  this  man  with 
Oushakof  and  Balakiref,  and  frequently  made  him  his 
favourite  butt.  The  poor  wretch  had  a  wife,  whose  reputa- 
tion was  of  the  lightest,  and  the  Tsar  never  failed,  when  he 
saw  him  before  company,  to  lift  two  of  his  fingers,  with  a 
s)'nibolic  gesture,  above  his  forehead." 

These  forms  of  amusement,  coarse  as  they  seem,  especially 
in  these  days,  might  have  passed  almost  uncriticised.  They 
were  the  natural,  and,  in  a  sense,  the  indispensable,  rebound 
of  an  existence  devoted  to  a  toil,  which,  without  them,  would 
have  exceeded  the  limit  of  human  strength,  even  in  the  case 
of  such  an  exceptionally  robust  nature  as  Peter's.  The  great 
man  thus  instinctively  sought  relief  for  his  overstrained 
nerves,  and,  extreme  as  he  was  in  all  particulars,  inevitably 
fell  into  the  worst  excesses.  It  might  even  be  urged  that 
the  disgusting,  cynical,  or  inhuman  side  of  his  bcliaviour 
was  atoned  for  by  the  unconstrained  gaiet}'  and  large- 
hearted  good-humour  which  usually  marked  it.  Half  a 
century  later.  Christian  Vll.  of  Denmark  caused  a  certain 
Count  Brandt,  who  had  been  set  upon  on  the  score  of  his 

1  Koiirakiii  Papers,  \o1.  i.  \\.  73. 

*  Scherer,  vol.  iii.  p.  56  ;   liergjiolz,  Biischings-I^lagaziii,  vol.  xix.  p.  87. 


156  PETER  THE  GREAT 

conjugal  misfortunes,  to  be  tried  and  condemned  to  death, 
because,  in  his  fury,  he  had  raised  his  liand  ai^ainst  the 
Sovercii^jn.  Peter  bore  tiie  hearty  blows  showered  upon  him 
b>'  Catherine's  head  cook,  when  that  functionary  was  not  in 
a  joking  humour,  witiiout  a  word  of  complaint.^  It  may  be 
said  that  he  should  have  chosen  the  subjects  of  his  jests 
elsewhere  than  in  the  kitchen,  but  that  was  his  style.  He 
was  no  aristocrat.  He  was  essentially  vulgar,  on  the  con- 
trary— as  much  allied,  by  certain  traits  of  rustic  humour 
and  childish  gaiety,  with  the  plebs  of  every  countr)-,  as  he 
was  distinguished  and  widely  separated,  by  the  general 
tendency  of  his  mind  and  character,  from  the  native  plebeian 
element.  His  earliest  comrades,  the  Konioiihy,  had  made 
him  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  manners  and  habits  of 
the  Russian  populace,  and  to'  that,  in  part,  he  owed  his 
knowledge  of  the  masses,  and  his  gift  for  ruling  them.  I 
have  described  him  during  the  Christmas  festivities  as  fol- 
lowing the  practice,  traditional  in  the  lower  classes,  of  the 
Slavic nic  {Ckrista  slavil,  '  praising  Christ ') — that  is,  of  sing- 
ing the  Saviour's  praises  before  the  doors  of  houses,  and 
claiming  the  gifts  usually  bestowed.  One  day  the  richest 
merchant  in  Moscow,  Filadief,  refused  to  be  sufficiently 
generous  in  his  donation.  Peter  forthwith  collected  the 
inhabitants  of  the  whole  quarter  before  his  house,  and 
forced  him  to  pay  a  ransom  of  one  rouble  for  every  head 
in  the  crowd. ^  Here  a  certain  quality  of  his  genius  appears  : 
his  aptitude  for  stirring  the  mob  by  appealing  to  its  lowest 
instincts. 

The  really  dangerous  side  of  these  pleasures  and  relaxa- 
tions resided  in  the  deliberate  confusion,  kept  up  by  Peter, 
of  madness  with  reason,  of  mere  masquerade  with  serious 
existence.  These  sham  counts  and  patriarchs,  these  buffoons 
and  harlequins,  constantly  added  to  their  carnival  dignities 
and  functions,  and  mingled  with  them,  others,  which  made, 
or  should  have  made,  them,  very  serious  personages.  Zotof 
was  Keeper  of  the  Seals;  Ivan  Golovin,  who,  though  he  had 
Ijeen  witli  Peter  in  Holland,  knew  nothing  of  naval  matters, 
was,  /<v-  t/iat  very  reason,  created  head  of  the  Admiralty, 
The  Sovereign  and  his  friends  found  this  a  very  pretty  sub- 
ject for  jesting,  but  the  fleet, — which,  among>t  themselves. 

'  Bcrgholz,  Busihinqs-Magaziti,  vol.  xix.  p.  87. 
*  Korb,  p.  loi. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     157 

whenever  they  drank  Ivan  Mihailovitch's  health,  they  called 
\{\s  family, — was  far  from  being  the  better  for  it. 

No  justification  nor  excuse  can  be  offered  for  these  dis- 
orders. They  were  the  clear  and  evident  weak  point  of  a 
most  superior  mind, — too  far  removed  from  the  common 
track,  too  completely  bereft  of  the  balance  which  education, 
tradition,  and  social  surroundings,  generally  enforce,  even  in 
the  most  independent  natures, — to  be  able  to  maintain  its 
equilibrium  in  that  huge  space  wherein  it  moved,  and 
traced  out  its  own  path. 


It  will  naturally  be  inquired  whether  the  public  and  official 
institution  of  the  mock  Patriarchate,  to  which  I  have  already 
referred,  really  was  intended,  as  some  think,  to  prepare 
the  way  for  the  suppression  of  the  real  one.  I  would 
willingly  admit  this,  were  it  not  for  my  sense  of  the  evident 
dangers  such  an  indirect  course  would  have  involved.  Would 
not  Peter  have  thus  risked,  not  only  the  dignity  of  the  whole 
clergy,  but  the  very  idea  of  religion  ?  Some  people  have 
looked  on  this  burlesque  as  a  mere  parody  of  the  Papacy.  I 
cannot  share  their  opinion.  1  find  Zotof  alternately  desig- 
nated Knes-papa  and  Patriarch.  And,  when  Peter  set  the 
mock  Caesar,  Romodanovski,  beside  the  Knes-papa,  whose 
rank  was  it,  whose  title,  whose  function,  that  he  sought  to 
ridicule  and  roll  in  the  mud?  I  am  rather  disposed  to 
believe  his  chief  desire  was  to  divert  a  mind  predisposed 
by  certain  hereditary  germs  of  Eastern  despotism,  certain 
constitutional  vices,  and  certain  faults  of  early  education, 
to  whimsical  eccentricities.  I  will  not  deny  that  more 
serious  intentions  may  have  occasionally  existed,  and  may 
even  have  been  at  the  root  of  this  wild  and  licentious 
debauch  of  fancy.  But  these  soon  disa]ipearcd — carried 
awa\',  and  fairly  drowned,  in  the  muddy  waves  of  that 
tumultuous  stream. 

This  is  by  no  means  the  opinion  of  a  recent  apologist,  so 
convinced  in  his  own  opinion  as  to  express  astonishment 
that  no  one  before  him  had  become  aware  of  the  real  and 
abiding  depth   of   the   plans   and    calculations    thus   set    in 


158  PETER  THE  GREAT 

motion  !)>•  the  great  sovereign.  How  is  it,  he  wonders,  tliat 
no  oiic  has  perceived  that  this  was  the  Tsar's  manner  of 
hiding  the  forces  secretly  prej)ared,  and  the  work  of  de- 
struction to  which  he  had  aheady  doomed  them,  from  the 
eyes  of  liis  enemies?  The  Kncs-papa  and  his  Conclave, 
so  we  are  told,  drunk,  or  seemingly  drunk,  as  they  may 
liave  been  in  the  da>time,  spent  their  nights  in  unrelent- 
ing toil.  The  correspondence  of  the  mock  Pontiff  with 
liis  Deacon  (the  title  taken  by  Peter  himself),  with  all  its 
apparent  ravings,  and  its  filthy  jokes,  was  a  mere  matter  of 
cvjiher.  Thus,  in  Zotofs  letter  to  the  Tsar,  dated  23rd 
I'ebruary  1697,  Carnival,  with  his  companions,  Ivashka 
(drunkenness)  and  leremka,  (debauchery),  against  whom 
Peter  was  warned,  are  said  to  stand  for  cunning  and  servile 
l'o!and,with  her  allies,  the  Hetman  of  the  Cossacks,  and  the 
Han  of  the  Tartars.^  This  interpretation  has  not  even  the 
virtue  of  ingenuity.  Is  it  likely  that,  in  1697,  Peter  or  his 
collaborators  would  have  taken  so  much  pains  to  convince 
the  Swedes  or  the  Poles  of  the  poverty  of  their  resources? 
It  was  only  too  apparent,  at  that  moment,  and  the  optical 
delusion  they  would  have  desired  to  produce  was  a  very 
different  one.  As  for  the  laborious  niglits  of  such  a  man  as 
Zotof,  my  imagination  rebels  at  the  very  thouL^ht.  In  a 
despatch  from  the  French  envoy  C^lampredon,  dated  14th 
March  1721,  I  find  the  following  words  :  'The  Patriarch,  of 
whom  I  have  spoken  above,  and  who  is  here  known  as 
Knes-papa,  is  a  professional  drunkard,  chosen  by  the  Tsar 
himself,  with  the  purpose  of  turning  his  clergy  into  ridicule.' 
This  is  a  true  description,  so  far,  at  least,  as  the  moral 
identity  of  the  personage  is  concerned,  although  the  indivi- 
dual actually  referred  to  was  Zotofs  successor.  Did  Peter 
really  think  of  turning  his  own  clergy  into  ridicule?  lie 
may,  indeed,  have  desired  to  lower  the  Patriarchate,  as 
being  a  rival  authority  to  his  own.  Up  till  this  time,  the 
Tsar,  according  to  immemorial  custom,  had  always  walked 
in  the  solemn  Palm-Sunday  procession  at  Moscow,  leading 
the  Patriarch's  mule.  Thus,  from  \ear  to  year,  the  supre- 
macy of  the  ecclesiastical  power,  dating  from  the  prepon- 
derating part  played  by  the  Patriarch  Philaretus  during  the 
reign  of  the  first  of  the  Romanoffs,  was   formally  affirmed. 

'  .See    Paper,    by    M.   Ivan    Nossovitch,  in    Russian   Aiilii/itities   (1S74),   p. 
735- 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     159 

Peter  replaced  this  solemn  procession  by  the  burlesque 
cortege  of  his  Kues-papa,  who  rode  on  an  ox,  and  was 
followed  by  an  army  of  vehicles  drawn  by  hogs,  bears,  and 
goats.-^  The  political  intention  is  here  quite  manifest.  Ikit 
it  is  equally  clear  that  this  intention  rapidly  faded,  and 
became  more  and  more  debased,  in  the  prolonged  course 
of  the  huge  and  irreverent  parody,  which  a  very  sensible 
eye-witness,  Vockerodt,  described  as  a  '  mere  mental  and 
physical  debauch.'-  Yet  this  phenomenon  calls  for  another 
explanation.  Its  depth,  its  extent,  its  duration,  were  all  so 
remarkable,  that  I  cannot  accept  it  as  the  outcome  of  a 
single  individual  inspiration,  however  fanciful  and  licentious. 
And,  indeed,  I  remark  a  very  general  tendency,  during  the 
period  immediately  preceding  Peter's  accession,  to  irony,  to 
satire,  and  to  the  comic  representation,  or  caricature,  of  all 
the  important  acts  of  life.  This  may  be  the  mere  rebound 
from  the  asceticism  to  which  I  have  already  referred,  and 
which,  as  I  have  pointed  out,  had  led  to  a  denial  of  every 
outward  manifestation  of  social  existence.^  As  to  the  form 
which  Peter  gave,  or,  perhaps,  onl)'  contributed  to  give,  this 
tendency,  it  may  bear  some  relation  to  the  excesses  in  which 
popular  imagination  and  passion  indulged,  in  other  countries, 
under  the  action  of  so-called  demoniac  influences.  My 
readers  will  recollect  the  orgies  of  the  nocturnal  revels  and 
messes  noires  so  common  in  France  early  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  of  which  the  mystifying  performances  of  modern 
disciples  of  the  occult  arts  are  but  a  pale  reflection.^  The 
analogy  of  causes  would  here  seem  to  confirm  the  analogy 
of  facts.  Both  in  Russia  and  in  France  we  have  a  revolt, 
physical  and  mental,  against  the  ordinary  course  of  life, 
which  compressed  and  wounded  body  and  spirit  alike;  and 
human  beings,  seeking  for  momentary  relief,  dashed  at  a 
bound  beyond  the  pale  of  reality,  outside  the  limits  of  law, 
and  religion,  and  society.  The  strange  thing  is  that  Peter 
should  have  presided  at  these  Saturnalia.  But  surely  he — 
the  first  and  willing  prisoner  within  the  iron  circle  of  his 
own  Ukases — sharing,  as  he  did,  the  common  condition, 
may  well  have  felt  the  common  need. 

^   Rergholz,  Biis/rhin^s-H/ai^azhi ,  vol.  xix.  p.  128. 

*  Vockerodt.     See  Herrmann,  p.   19. 

'  Zaljielin,  Lives  of  the  Tsarinas,  p  426. 

*  See  Michelet,  Histoire  de  France  (Flamni.irion  edition),  vol.  xi.  p.    54. 


i6o  PETER  THE  GREAT 

I  must  now  proceed  to  facts,  and  tliesc,  1  believe,  will 
.strike  my  readers  as  being  conclusive. 

The  origin  of  the  scenes  of  desecration  in  which  the  Pope 
or  Patriarch  Zotof  and  his  successors  played  their  part, 
dates,  as  I  have  said,  from  the  earliest  years  of  this  reign. 
]?ut  its  decorative  accessories  were  successively  developed. 
Peter,  after  he  had  created  a  pontiff,  proceeded  to  appoint 
him  cardinals  and  a  conclave.  This  was  the  Vsics/iontc/iie- 
'ichyi  or  VsicpiianiclcJiyi  Sobor/  \\vq.  Conclave  or  Council  of 
the  maddest  or  the  most  drunken  ' — a  fixed  institution,  almost 
official  in  its  character.  The  Tsar  worked  out  its  organisa- 
tion from  year  to  year,  inventing  statutes  and  regulations, 
which  he  drew  up  with  his  own  hand,  even  on  the  very  eve 
of  the  battle  of  Poltava.^  Its  members  consisted  of  the  most 
dissolute  of  his  boon  companions,  with  whom, — either  out  of 
mere  brutal  and  despotic  caprice,  or  in  the  idea  of  debasing, 
so  as  the  more  easily  to  control  them, — he  associated  a  certaui 
number  of  men  of  serious  mind,  and  rigid  morals.  The 
members'  first  duty  was  to  present  themselves  at  the  house 
of  the  Kncs-papa,  called  the  Vaticaiiiiin,  and  there  oftcr  him 
their  homage  and  their  thanks.  Four  stutterers,  conducted 
by  one  of  the  Tsar's  footmen,  were  spokesmen  on  this 
occasioti,  in  the  course  of  which  the  new  arrivals  were 
invested  with  the  red  robe  which  was  to  be  their  future 
official  costume.  Thus  garbed,  they  entered  an  apartment 
called  the  Hall  of  the  Consistory,  the  only  furniture  of 
which  consisted  of  casks  ranged  round  the  walls.  At  the 
end  of  the  room,  on  a  pile  of  emblematic  objects,  such  as 
barrels,  bottles,  and  glasses,  was  the  throne  of  the  Kncs-papa. 
One  by  one  the  cardinals  defiled  before  him,  each  receiving 
a  glass  of  brandy,  and  listening  to  this  formula:  ' Rcvcrcud- 
issiiue,  open  thy  mouth,  swallow  what  thou  art  given,  and 
thou  shalt  tell  us  fine  things.'  After  which,  all  being  seated 
on  the  casks,  the  sitting  was  opened,  and  continued  many 
hours,  during  which  copious  libations  were  mingled  with 
low  jests.  The  Conclave  was  held  in  a  neighbouring  house, 
to  which  the  members  went  in  procession,  headed  by  the 
Knes-pat>a,  sitting  astride  on  a  wine-butt  drawn  by  four 
oxen.  He  was  attended  by  mock  monks — Jacobins,  Fran- 
ciscans, and  so  forth.  The  habit  of  Father  Cailloau,  a 
French   Franciscan,  resident   in    IVToscow,  had   supplied  the 

*  See  Nossovitch's  Paper.     Compaie  Siemievs'.>i,  Slovo  t  Die/o,  p.  2S1. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     i6i 

pattern  for  their  dresses.  Peter  went  so  far  as  to  try  to 
force  the  monk  himself  to  take  part  in  the  procession,  and 
only  desisted  in  face  of  the  energetic  opposition  of  the 
French  minister.  He  himself,  dressed  as  a  Dutch  sailor, 
generally  ordered  the  march  of  the  procession.  A  spacious 
gallery,  lined  with  narrow  beds,  awaited  the  members  of  the 
conclave  ;  between  the  beds  casks  sawn  in  half  were  ranged, 
filled  with  food.  The  sham  cardinals  were  forbidden  to 
leave  their  beds  before  the  close  of  the  Conclave.  Certain 
conclavists,  attached  to  the  person  of  each,  were  charged 
with  the  duty  of  inciting  them  to  drink,  urging  them  to  the 
wildest  extravagances,  to  the  most  filthy  jests,  and  also, 
so  we  are  told,  to  talk  unreservedly.  The  Tsar  was  always 
present,  listening,  and  noting  things  down  on  his  tablets. 
The  Conclave  lasted  three  days  and  three  nights.  When 
there  was  no  question  of  electing  a  new  Pope,  the  time 
was  employed  in  discussions  relative  to  such  matters  as  the 
cjuality  of  some  particular  brand  of  wine,  with  which  one 
of  the  cardinals  had  found  fault. 

In  1714  Peter  took  it  into  his  head  to  vary  the  monotony 
of  this  programme  by  celebrating  the  wedding  of  the  Knes- 
papa  Zotof,  an  old  man  of  eiglity-four,  whose  sons  were 
distinguished  officers  in  the  army.  One  of  these  vainly 
besought  the  Tsar  to  spare  this  shame  to  his  father's  old 
age.  The  bride  was  a  noble  lady,  Anna  Pashkof,  nearly 
sixty  years  of  age.  Immense  preparations  were  made  for 
the  celebration  of  this  extraordinary  wedding.  We  must 
not  forget  that  the  Northern  War,  with  all  its  dreary  array 
of  daily  sacrifice  and  mourning,  which  sucked  the  resources 
of  the  country  dry,  was  then  in  progress.  Yet,  four  months 
in  advance,  all  the  lords  and  ladies  of  the  Court  had  orders 
to  be  ready  to  play  their  part  in  the  ceremony,  and  to  send 
detailed  descriptions  of  their  chosen  disguises  to  the  Chan- 
cellor, Count  Golovkin,  so  that  there  might  not  be  more 
than  three  of  any  character.  Twice  over,  on  the  12th  of 
December  17 14,  and  the  15th  of  January  171 5,  performers 
and  costumes  were  duly  inspected  by  Peter  himself  With 
his  own  hand  he  wrote  out  all  the  instructions  and  arrange- 
ments for  the  ceremonial,  specially  invented  for  the  occasion. 
On  the  appointed  day,  at  a  signal  given  by  a  cannon,  fired 
from  the  fortress  of  St.  Petersburg,  the  male  and  female 
particip.itors    in  the    masquerade    gathered — the  former  in 


i62  PETER  THE  GREAT 

the  Chancellor's  house,  the  latter  in  the  dwelling  of  the 
rrincess-Abbess,  a  lady  of  the  name  of  Rjevski,  '  an  active 
and  compliant,  but  exceedingly  drunken  body,'  as  one  of 
her  contemporaries  described  her.  She  was  replaced,  after 
her  death,  by  Princess  Anastasia  Galitzin,  the  daughter  of 
Prince  Prozorovski,  a  great  friend  of  Peter's,  whom  lie 
treated  like  his  own  sister,  until  he  had  her  publicly  whipped 
in  the  courtyard  of  the  offices  of  the  Secret  Police  at  Pieo- 
brajenskoi'e,  she  having  been  accused  of  comj)licity  with 
Alexis,  after  having  been  commissioned  to  watch  and  spy 
upon  him.  She  bought  back  the  Tsar's  favour  by  accepting 
the  post  of  Princess- Abbess.^ 

The  procession  formed  up  in  front  of  the  Tsar's  Palace, 
and,  crossing  the  frozen  Neva,  took  its  way  to  the  Church 
of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  on  the  opposite  bank,  where 
a  priest  of  over  ninety  years  of  age,  actually  brought  from 
Moscow  for  the  purpose,  awaited  the  bride  and  bridegroom. 
At  its  head  was  Romodanovski,  the  mock  Caesar,  dressed  as 
King  David,  carrying  a  lyre,  draped  in  a  bearskin.  I^'our 
bears  were  harnessed  to  his  sledge,  and  a  fifth  followed  it 
like  a  footman.  These  creatures  screamed  in  the  most 
frightful  manner  under  the  blows  which  were  rained  upon 
them  from  start  to  finish.  King  David  was  followed  by  the 
bride  and  bridegroom,  seated  on  a  very  high  sledge,  sur- 
rounded by  Cupids,  a  stag  with  huge  horns  on  the  coach- 
man's box,  and  a  goat  seated  behind  them.  The  mock 
Patriarch  wore  his  pontifical  robes.  All  the  greatest  people 
in  the  capital — ministers,  aristocrats,  and  diplomatic  corps, 
— followed  the  procession,  some  of  them  more  than  a  little 
constrained  and  uncomfortable;  but  for  that  Peter  did  not 
care  a  jot.  Prince  Menshikof,  Admiral  Apraxin,  General 
]5ruce,  and  Count  Vitzthum,  the  Envoy  of  Augustus  II., 
costumed  as  Hamburg  burgomasters,  plaj-cd  on  the  hurdy- 
gurdy.  The  Russian  Chancellor,  the  Princes  James  and 
(Gregory  Dolgorouki,  the  Princes  Peter  and  Demetrius 
Galitzin,  dressed  as  Chinamen,  played  on  the  flute.  The 
Austrian  Resident,  Pleyer,  the  Hanoverian  Minister,  Weber, 
the  Dutch  Resident,  De  Bie,  as  German  shepherds,  blew  the 
bagpipes.  Certain  gentlemen,  Michael  Glebof,  Peter  and 
Nikita  llitrof,  had  been  dispensed  from  performing  on  a 
musical  instrument  on  account  of  their  age,  but  ihey  had  to 

^  Diilj^oroukof,  Memoirs,  vdl.  i.  p.  75. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     163 

put  in  an  appearance.  The  Tsarcvitch,  pi^arbed  as  a  hunts- 
man, blew  his  horn  ;  Catherine,  with  eight  of  her  ladies, 
wore  Finnish  costume  ;  the  old  Tsarina  Marfa.  the  widow 
of  Tsar  Feodor,  appeared  in  Polish  dress.  The  Princess  of 
OstT-^rieslaiid  had  an  old  German  costume.  All  these  ladies 
pla\'ed  the  flute.  Peter,  dressed,  as  usual,  as  a  sailor,  rattled 
on  the  drum.  He  was  surrounded  by  a  noisy  and  motley 
crew  of  Venetians  blowing  shrill  whistles  ;  Honduras  savages, 
who  waved  their  lances  ;  Poles,  scraping  violins  ;  Kalmuks, 
tinkling  the  da/a/ai/ca  (Russian  guitar)  ;  Norwegian  peasants, 
Lutheran  pastors,  monks  ;  Catholic  bishops  with  stags'  horns 
on  their  heads  ;  Raskolniks,  whale-fishers,  Armenians, 
Japanese,  Lapps,  and  Tungouses.  The  noise  of  the  instru- 
ments, the  screams  of  the  bears,  the  clang  of  the  bells  that 
rang  out  of  every  church  tower,  and  the  acclamations  of  the 
thousands  of  onlookers,  rose  in  an  infernal  cacophony  of 
sound.  '  This  is  the  Patriarch's  wedding  !  '  shouted  the  spec- 
tators ;  '  Long  live  the  Patriarch  and  his  wife  !  '  The  cere- 
mony closed,  as  may  be  imagined,  with  a  banquet,  which 
soon  became  an  orgy,  during  which  a  flock  of  trembling 
octogenarians  acted  as  cupbearers.  The  festivities  continued 
the  next  day,  and  lasted  well  into  P'ebruary.^ 

But  it  would  be  very  unbecoming  on  my  part  to  omit  one 
detail.  On  the  very  day  of  the  wedding,  Peter,  still  in  his 
sailor's  costume,  contrived,  between  the  masquerade  and  the 
banquet,  to  give  an  audience  to  Count  Vitzthum,  during 
which,  after  having  discussed  most  important  matters,  he 
charged  him  with  a  letter  for  his  master,  dated  that  very 
day,  and  dealing  with  Polish  affairs.  He  also  received 
l^assewitz,  and  talked  over  the  Duke  of  Holstein's  business 
with  him.^  This  incident,  in  itself  worthy  of  all  admiration, 
will  not  diminish  the  disgust  inspired  by  the  circumstances 
which  surrounded  it. 

When  Zotof  died,  in  17 17,  Peter  drew  up  fresh  regulations 
for  the  election  of  his  successor — quite  a  little  volume  of 
grotesque  contrivances,  in  which  he  particularly  insisted 
on  the  verification  of  the  candidate's  sex,  according  to 
the    custom    established    at   Rome    since    the    days    of  the 

^  Golikof,  vol.  vi.  pp.  279-290.  L.-Uer  from  De  Hie  to  the  Secretary  of  the 
States-Gjneral,  St.  Petersburg,  Fel).  i,  1715,  Dutch  State  Papers;  Dolgoroukof, 
Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  14 1. 

-  Golikof,  vol.  vi.  pji.  279-290. 


i64  PETER  THE  GREAT 

famous  Pope  Joan.  We  must  not  forget  that,  just  at  that 
moment,  he  was  expecting  the  return  of  his  son  Alexis, 
and  was  making  ready  to  begin  that  terrible  trial  which  was 
to  cast  such  a  painful  shadow  over  the  last  years  of  his  life. 
No  symptom  of  that  shadow  was  apparent  as  yet.  Tlie  new- 
candidate  was  called  Peter  Ivanmitch  Boutourlin.  He  had 
hitherto  borne  the  title  of  Archbishop  of  St.  Petersburg 
'in  the  diocese  of  drunkards,  gluttons,  and  madmen.'  lie 
was  a  member  of  one  of  the  most  illustrious  families  in  the 
country.  This  time  Peter  kept  the  part  of  Subdeacon  to 
the  Conclave  for  himself.  The  members  of  this  Conclave 
received  their  ballot  balls,  or  r.ither  the  eggs  which  repre- 
sented them,  from  the  hands  of  the  Princess-Abbess, 
whose  breasts  they  kissed  ...  I  pass  over  details,  which 
are  either  indescribable  or  uninteresting.^  A  few  months 
later  the  unhappy  Alexis  was  agonising  in  the  Question 
Chamber  under  the  torture  of  the  whip,  and  yet  his  father 
sat  gaily  at  table  with  the  new  Knes-papa — 'the  Patriarch, 
or  rather  the  burlesque  of  a  Patriarch,'  as  Vockerodt  calls 
iiim — and  presided  over  scenes  of  the  vilest  and  most 
disgusting  debauchery. 

In  1720  Peter  took  it  into  his  head  to  marry  Boutourlin 
to  Zotof's  widow  ;  and  once  more  we  see  him  lavishing  the 
strangest  drolleries,  obscenities,  and  unheard-of  profanities, 
in  all  directions.  A  bed  was  set  up  within  a  p\'ramid,  which 
had  bien  built,  in  1714,  before  the  Palace  of  the  Senate,  in 
commemoration  of  a  victory  over  the  Swedes.  He  must 
needs  scoff  at  his  soldiers'  victories,  at  the  blood  spilt  in 
defence  of  the  country,  even  at  his  own  glory  !  The  newly 
married  couple  were  put  to  bed  dead  drunk,  and  subjected 
to  the  grossest  indignities  at  the  hands  of  the  populace. 
The  next  morning,  the  new  Kncs-papa  opened  his  Ponti- 
ficate, by  giving  his  blessing  after  the  fasJiion  of  tJie  Riissiau 
priests,  to  a  procession  of  maskers,  who  waited  on  him  at 
his  house.2 

This  Pontificate  was  of  very  short  duration.  On  the  lOth 
of  September  1723,  I  read  in  one  of  Canipredon's  despatches  : 
'The  ceremony  of  the  installation  of  the  new  Patriarch  will 
take  place  at  Moscow  ;  the  Concla\e  will  be  held  in  a  small 

'  Sit'mievski,  Slovo  i  Dielo,  p.  281,  etc.  ;  .Scbercr,  vol.  ii.  p.   163. 
'  Dcspatcli  from  the   French    Resident,  I^  \'ie,  St.  I'eterslnirg,  Oct.  4,  1720, 
Frencli  I'oreif^n  Ol'fice  ;  Bergholz,  lUisihiir^^-Ma^nziii,  vol.  xix.  p.  127. 


INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS  AND  MORAL  FEATURES     165 

island  near  PreobrajenskL  on  which  there  is  a  peasants' 
cottage.  The  mock  cardinals  will  there  assemble  on  the 
appointed  day  ;  they  will  have  to  drink  wine  and  brandy, 
for  four-and-twenty  hours,  without  going  to  sleep,  and  after 
that  fine  preparation,  they  will  choose  their  Patriarch.'  ^ 

There  can  be  no  two  opinions  concerning  these  shameful 
scenes  and  aberrations  from  decenc\'.  The  only  possible 
disagreement  is  as  to  what  explanation  may  be  given  of 
them.  I  hold  to  that  I  have  already  indicated.  Peter  was 
the  representative  of  a  society  in  process  of  formation,  into 
which  historical  premisses,  and  his  own  personal  initiative, 
had  introduced,  and  continued  to  maintain,  diverse  and 
opposing  elements  of  fermentation — a  society  in  which 
nothing  stable,  nothing  consecrated,  and,  therefore,  nothing 
sacred,  existed.  From  the  days  of  Ivan  the  Terrible,  all  the 
remarkable  men  in  this  society  had  been  eccentrics — '  Saino- 
doiuy'  according  to  the  expressive  national  term — and  this 
fact  is  explained  by  the  absence  of  a  common  fund  of  national 
culture.  Peter  was  the  same.  He  was  a  huge  Mastodon, 
and  his  moral  proportions  were  all  colossal  and  monstrous, 
like  those  of  the  antediluvian  flora  and  fauna.  He  was 
full  of  elementary  forces  and  instincts — the  true  primi- 
tive man,  close  and  thick-growing  like  a  virgin  forest, 
bursting  with  sap,  and  infinitely  diverse.  Man,  as  he  was 
before  a  long  course  of  natural  selection  developed  him  into 
a  special  type  of  the  human  species — like  no  one  else,  and 
still  full  of  the  most  incongruous  resemblances,  mighty, 
capricious,  tragicomic,  a  kinsman  of  Louis  XL,  and  own 
r.ousin  to  Sir  John  Falstaff.  Very  plebeian  too,  as  I  have 
already  said — a  close  neighbour  of  those  lower  strata,  out  of 
which  a  chosen  circle  was  slowly  rising.  He  chose  his 
friends  and  collaborators  among  the  common  herd,  looked 
after  his  household  like  any  shopkeeper,  thrashed  his  wife 
like  a  peasant,  and  sought  his  pleasure  where  the  lower 
populace  generally  finds  it.  When,  to  all  this,  we  add  the 
incessant  clash,  within  his  brain,  of  ideas  and  inspirations, 
which,  though  often  contradictory  in  themselves,  generally 
tended  to  a  deliberate  upheaval  and  a  consequent  universal 
levelling  process — when  we  consider  that  he  consciously 
possessed  the  most  absolute  power,  over  the  men  and  things 
around  him,  that  any  human  being  has  ever  known — and 
^  French  Foreign  Office. 


i66  PETER  THE  GREAT 

when  we  recollect  the  urfjcnt  need,  that,  as  I  have  said 
already,  must  from  time  to  time  have  stung  him,  to  \i<ilcntly 
cast  off  the  realities  of  existence,  because,  in  the  lon^^-run, 
they  grew  unendurable,  even  to  such  a  man  as  he  was — 
this  strange  aspect  of  the  great  Tsar's  moral  character  will 
surely  be  sufficiently  explained. 


CHAPTER    III 

IDEAS,    PRINCIPLES   AND   SYSTEM    OF   GOVERNMENT 

Abundance  of  ideas — Aids  to  memory — These  ideas  mostly  suggested — Peter 
haunted  by  the  West — Inadequacy  of  certain  essential  notions — Justice, 
religion,  morality — Intellectual  incoherence — Utilitarian  spirit. 

General  conception  of  the  Sovereign's  duty — Contradictory  principles 
mingled  with  it — Individual  abnegatii^n,  and  absorption  of  the  common 
life — Introduction  of  the  social  principle  into  the  organisation  of  the 
country,  and  acceptance  of  its  extreme  consequences —  1  he  first  servant 
of  the  State — Peter  relinqui>hes  the  wealth  amassed  by  his  predecessors — 
The  patrimony  of  the  Romanofs — Peter  Mihailofs  pay — Mis  account 
book — 366  roubles  a  year — The  reverse  of  the  medal — \\  himsicality  and 
despotism — The  servant's  hand  raised  against  his  master. 

The  causes  of  this  contradiction — Revolutionary  nature  of  the  Reform — 
Asiatic  elements — The  Regime  of  terror  aggravated  by  them — ^Historical 
connection — Arbitrary  Government  and  the  Inquisiii(jn — A  dilettante  in 
Torture — Universal  espionage — 'The  tongues' — The  Secret  Police  and 
the  Tribunals  of  the  Convention — Duration  of  this  regime,  and  patience  of 
the  country  under  it — Suited  to  the  National  habits. 

A  system  of  perpetual  threats — Summary  executions — The  Doubina — The 
executioner's  axe — Desertion — Attempts  to  repress  it — The  brand — Out- 
lawry— None  of  these  measures  suffice — A  general  snuve-qia-peut — '  Near 
the  Tsar,  near  death' — Absenteeism  of  the  great  families — Parvenus — 
The  system  thus  rendered  still  more  oppressive — Favouritism — Ancestral 
traditions —  1  heir  share  in  the  Reform,  and  their  influence  on  its  scope. 


I  HAVE  already,  in  the  course  of  my  remarks  on  the  intellec- 
tual gifts  of  the  great  reformer,  described  them  in  active 
operation, — for  action  was  his  invariable  condition.  It  now 
remains  for  me  to  show  them  in  more  direct  connection  with 
the  realities  of  life,  and  of  practical  government. 

Peter's  ideas  came  to  him  in  shoals.  Their  abundance  is 
proved  by  the  means  he  employed  to  protect  the  daily  pro- 
duct of  his  active  brain  against  the  weakness  of  his  own 
memory.  He  always  carried  tablets  with  him,  which  he 
constant!)'  drew  from  his  pocket  and  covered  with  hasty 
12  1^7 


I68  PETER  THE  GREAT 

notes.  When  these  were  filled — and  this  was  all  too  soon — 
he  would  la)'  hands  on  the  first  piece  of  paper  that  came 
handy,  and  would  even  use  the  smallest  clear  space  on  an\' 
document  within  his  reach, — whether  its  contents  bore  any 
relation  to  the  subject  of  his  m(jmcntar\'  preoccupation  or 
not.  Thus,  on  the  marj.,nn  of  a  report  on  the  proposed 
establishment  of  the  St.  Petersburg  Academy,  and  following 
certain  notes  of  his,  respecting  this  particular  business,  the 
following  lines,  also  in  his  handwriting,  appear: — 'I  must 
send  orders  to  Roumiantsof,  in  the  Ukraine,  to  exchange 
all  the  oxen  he  can  get  in  the  province  for  sheep,  and  to 
send  some  one  abroad  to  learn  how  to  take  care  of  that  sort 
of  animal,  how  they  are  shorn,  and  how  the  wool  is  prepared 
for  use.'  ^ 

These  ideas,  if  we  look  into  them  closely,  are  no  more 
than  suggestions,  coming  directly  from  without,  and  but 
slightly  modified  by  any  internal  intellectual  process ;  and 
the)'  are  more  remarkable  for  their  number  than  for  their 
amplitude.  Peter  thought,  just  as  he  looked  at  things,  in 
detail,  and  the  chief  quality  of  his  mind  was  a  marvellous 
reflecting  power.  But  the  mirror  of  his  intellect  would 
appear  to  us  to  be  broken  up  into  too  many,  and  too 
strangely  disposed,  facets.  A  certain  number  of  the  sur- 
rounding objects, — and  these  often  the  nearest  ones, — 
escaped  his  perception  altogether.  He  spent  years  in  the 
near  vicinity  of  such  a  man  as  Possoshkof,  and  utterly 
ignored  the  existence  of  that  profound  and  original  thinker. 
Probably  the  poor  philosopher  suffered  from  the  fact,  that  he 
was  neither  a  German  nor  a  Dutchman.  In  vain  did  he 
send  some  of  his  writings — his  treaty  on  poverty  and  wealth,  a 
huge  and  astonishing  political  enc)'clopa.'dia — to  his  sovereign. 
In  vain  did  he  even  recommend  himself  to  his  notice  in  that 
domain  of  practical  performance,  which  Peter  so  particularly 
appreciated.  Possoshkofif  was  the  first  person  to  open  salt- 
petre works  in  Russia.  Prince  Boris  Galitzin  gave  him 
fourteen  roubles  for  his  discovery,  and  that  was  all  he  ever 
made  by  it.  When,  long  after  Peter's  death,  people  began 
to  read  his  work,  he  was  shut  up  in  prison,  and  there  died. 
No  publisher  touched  it  till  half  a  century  later — in  1 799. 
Peter  had  no  use  for  his  knowledge  and  his  talents.  Yet, 
during  his  first  visit  to  the  Hague,  he  applied  to  the  Secretary 

^  Staehlin,  p.  170. 


PRINCIPLES  AND  SYSTEM  OF  GOVERNMENT       169 

of  the  States  General,^  Fagel,  to  find  him  a  man  who  would 
undertake  to  organise  and  direct  his  State  Chancery, — another 
Dutch  boatswain  to  erect  another  machine,  and  set  it  going ! 
A  short  time  later,  in  London,  he  took  the  advice  of  a  Pro- 
testant ecclesiastic  on  the  same  subject.  The  Apolciponicna 
of  Francis  Lee,-  show  clear  traces  of  this  consultation,  and 
some  of  his  readers  have  discovered,  beside  a  learned  dis- 
sertation on  the  plan  of  Noah's  Ark,  the  principle  of  those 
future  administrative  bodies,  on  which  the  working  of  Peter's 
Government  was  to  hinge.  That  looking-glass  of  his  was 
invariably  turned  westward.  The  Memoirs  of  Ostermann, 
unpublished  as  yet,  are  indeed  said  to  contain  this  sally, 
ascribed  to  the  Tsar  :  '  Europe  is  necessary  to  us  for  a  few 
decades  ;  after  that,  we  will  turn  our  back  on  it.'  ^  I  have  not 
been  able  to  verify  the  quotation,  but  even  the  fact  of  its 
correctness  would  not  convince  me  of  the  authenticity  of  the 
remark.  Failing  clear  proof  of  that,  I  should  be  much  more 
inclined  to  take  it  as  the  dictum  of  some  modern  Slavophile. 
Action — with  this  man  of  perpetual  motion^often  pre- 
ceded thought,  or,  at  all  events,  followed  immediately  on  it; 
and  the  number  of  his  acts  for  this  reason  far  exceeds  the 
quantity  of  his  ideas.  Certain  very  essential  notions  he  ab- 
solutely lacked,  especially  in  matters  of  mere  justice.  In 
171 5,  some  of  his  sailors  burnt  certain  Dutch  ships,  which 
they  had  taken  for  Swedish  ones.  He  vowed  it  was  Sweden's 
business  to  pay  the  damage,  because  the  incident  had  occurred 
near  Helsingfors  ;  and  Helsingfors  stood  on  Swedish  soil. 
And  he  really  believed  he  was  within  his  right.  He  forced 
the  Swedish  Chancellor,  Piper,  whom  he  had  taken  prisoner 
at  Poltava,  to  sign  a  draft  for  30,000  crowns  on  Stockholm, 
and,  when  the  Swedish  Government  refused  to  pa\',  he  threw 
the  Chancellor, — a  sick  man,  over  70  years  of  age, — into  a 
dungeon,  where  he  died  the  following  year."*  I  have  already 
spoken  of  the  inconsistency  and  confusion  of  mind,  betrayed 
in  all  his  behaviour,  as  regards  religious  matters.  The 
Registers  of  the  Confessional,  about  which  Catherine  was  later 
to  make  such  a  mystery  to  Voltaire,  and  the  penalties  for 
refractory  persons,  were  all  of  his  invention.     He  used  to  sing 

^  Scheltema,  Russia  and  the  Lcnu  Cottntiies,  vol.  i.  p.  1/5" '^3- 

2  London,  1752. 

^  Russian  Archives,  1S74,  p.  1579. 

*  Bergliolz,  Biischings-IMagazin,  vol.  xi.\.  p.  67. 


17©  PETER  THE  GREAT 

in  the  church  choirs,  and  each  of  his  victories  was  celebrated 
by  a  service  which  lasted  at  least  five  hours.  The  thanks- 
giving for  the  victory  of  Poltava  lasted  seven,  so  as  to  give 
good  measure  to  the  God  of  armies.  Poor-boxes  were 
placed  in  all  the  churches  he  usually  frequented,  to  receive 
the  fines  he  inflicted  on  any  members  of  the  congregation 
whom  he  caught  in  un.seemly  attitudes,  talking  or  sleeping. 
And  an  iron  collar,  which  the  severity  of  the  Sovereign 
reserved  for  haidened  offenders,  is  still  preserved  in  the 
Convent  of  St.  Alexander  Nevski.  Such  persons  heard 
their  Mass,  the  following  Sunday,  firmly  fastened  by  the 
neck  to  one  of  the  pillars  of  the  sacred  edifice  !  ^ 

Yet,  at  other  moments,  both  his  words  and  actions  seemed 
to  indicate  a  leaning  towards  Protestanism.  He  would  sur- 
round himself  with  Calvinists  and  Lutherans,  would  hold 
long  doctrinal  discussions,  in  which  his  orthodoxy  often 
appeared  very  questionable,  and  would  listen,  with  ap- 
parent devotion,  to  sermons  that  recked  of  heresy.  An 
edict,  published  in  1706,  and  approved  by  him,  granted  all 
Protestants  free  exercise  of  their  worship. 

But  again,  Theiner  has  published  a  series  of  documents 
proving  the  hopes  felt  at  Rome — both  before,  and  after, 
this  decision — as  to  a  possible  reunion  between  the  two 
churches.  The  Sovereign  went  so  far,  at  certain  moments, 
as  to  be  gracious  even  to  the  Jesuits.  He  began,  it  must 
be  confessed,  by  expelling  them,  in  1689,  and  the  opinion 
he  expressed  of  them  at  Vienna,  in  1698,  was  far  from 
friendly.  '  The  Emperor,'  he  was  heard  to  say,  '  must  know 
those  people  are  much  richer  than  he  is,  yet  during  the  whole 
of  his  last  war  with  Turkey,  he  never  forced  them  to  send 
him  a  man,  or  even  a  copper  coin.'  Notwithstanding  which, 
only  eight  years  later,  the  Jesuit  Fathers  had  colleges,  both 
at  Moscow,  St.  Petersburg,  and  at  Archangel.  This  went  on 
till  17 19,  then,  all  of  a  sudden,  they  were  driven  out  again. 
Why  ?  Because  of  a  quarrel  with  the  Austrian  Court,  the 
natural  protector  of  the  disciples  of  Loyola.  Peter,  not 
finding  himself  able  to  injure  the  Emperor,  wreaked  his  bad 
temper  on  the  ]Miiperor's/>;v;/r>i\y.  All  his  principles, whether 
in  religion  or  in  politics,  were  of  a  piece  with  this  sorry  per- 
formance.'- 

'  Schcrcr,  vol.  iii.  p.  238. 

*  Golikof,  vol.  vii.  jip.  237,  431.     \Vcl)er,  I. ast  Anecdotes,  p.  34S. 


PRINCIPLES  AND  SYSTEM  OF  GOVERNMENT       171 

As  regards  the  Jews,  he  would  seem  to  have  had  a  settled 
determination  of  a  sort.  He  could  not  abide  them.  He  would 
not  have  them  in  his  empire  at  any  price.  And  yet,  I  find 
in  his  inner  circle  a  Mej'er,  a  most  undoubted  Jew,  who, 
with  his  brother-in-law,  Lups,  served  the  Tsar  in  various 
operations  connected  with  army  finance  and  supply.  The 
contractor  was  to  be  seen,  close  to  his  employer,  sitting  on 
his  right,  even  at  the  deliberations  of  the  Senate,  and  treated 
with  every  respect  and  consideration.^ 

The  fact  is,  that  in  everything,  and  above  all  things,  Peter 
was  utilitaricDi,  and  thus  it  came  about,  that,  in  matters  of 
morality,  his  opinions  and  his  line  of  conduct  generally  led 
him  into  practical  cynicism.  He  made  a  law  whereby 
infanticide  was  punished  with  death,  but  the  lawgiver  was 
astounded  to  find  that  Charles  V,  had  visited  adultery  with 
the  same  penalty.  'Had  he  too  many  subjects?'-  One 
day,  at  Vichn)-i- Volotchok,  in  the  Government  of  Nov- 
gorod, whither  he  had  gone  to  inspect  some  canals  in 
course  of  construction,  he  noticed,  in  the  crowd,  a  young 
girl,  whose  pretty  face,  and  air  of  embarrassment,  both 
struck  him.  He  beckoned  to  her.  She  came  at  once, 
but  all  abashed,  hiding  her  face  in  her  hands.  He 
said  something  about  finding  her  a  husband.  Her  young 
companions  burst  out  laughing.  He  inquired  the  reason, 
and  was  told  the  unhappy  child  had  gone  astray,  and  that 
her  lover,  a  German  officer,  had  left  her  with  a  baby  in 
her  arms.  No  crime  this,  in  the  Tsar's  eyes !  Sharply  he 
took  the  girl's  companions  to  task,  sent  for  the  infant,  and 
openly  declared  his  pleasure  at  the  thought  that  he  would 
some  day  be  a  good  soldier.  He  kissed  the  mother,  gave 
her  a  handful  of  roubles,  and  promised  not  to  lose  sight  of 
her.^  He  bestowed  10,000  ducats,  and  an  order  for  banish- 
ment, on  Tolstoi',  the  President  of  the  commercial  depart- 
ment of  his  Government,  to  help  him  to  get  rid  of  an  Italian 
courtesan  ;  but,  that  the  money  might  not  be  altogether 
wasted,  he  contrived  a  secret  negotiation  at  Vienna  and 
at  Rome,  in  which  the  fair  lady  was  expected  to  act  as  a 
decoy.* 

*  .Staelilin,  p.  333.  2  /^j-^_  3  Staehlin,  p.  233. 

*  Campredon's  Despatches,  17th  Aug.  1722  (French  Foreign  Office). 


172  PETER  THE  GREAT 


II 

Peter  had,  as  I  have  endeavoured  to  show,  a  general  con- 
ception of  his  duties,  of  the  part  he  had  to  pla}',  and  of 
the  riiijhts  it  conferred  on  him.  Yet,  unconsciously,  he 
mingled  two  principles,  which — though  he  neither  knew  it 
nor  cared — were  in  radical  contradiction  to  each  other. 
Starting  from  his  own  absolute  individual  sacrifice  on  the 
altar  of  the  common  interest,  he  arrived  at  the  complete 
absorption  of  the  whole  community  into  his  own  all-engross- 
ing individuality.  Louis  XIV.'s  pretensions  were  nothing 
to  his.  He  not  only  claimed  that  the  Sovereign  was  the 
State,  but  that  the  whole  life  of  the  nation,  past,  present, 
and  future,  was  identical  with  his  own.  He  firmly  believed 
that  the  intellectual  and  economic  renewal — over  which  he 
did  indeed  preside,  but  which  certainly  proceeded,  in  part, 
from  causes  anterior  to,  and  independent  of,  his  action — was 
his  personal  work,  his  creation,  his  chattel,  devoid  of  any 
reason  for,  or  possibility  of,  e.xistence,  apart  from  him.  He 
doubtless  believed  in  a  jjrolongation  of  this  work,  be\'ond 
the  probable  term  of  his  own  existence.  All  his  efforts,  in 
fact,  were  directed  to  this  object.  But,  at  the  bottom  of  his 
heart,  he.  could  not  conceive  its  existence  without  any  parti- 
cipation of  his.  Hence  his  indifference  in  the  matter  of  the 
dynastic  question.  It  is  no  dchige  that  he  foresees,  after  his 
own  departure :  he  sees  something  not  far  removed  from 
utter  void. 

His  rights  and  duties,  as  he  understood  them,  were  quite 
a  novelty  to  Russia.  Until  his  time,  the  whole  organisation 
of  the  country,  including  its  political  life,  had  been  founded 
on  the  family  idea.  His  father,  the  Tsar  Alexis,  had  been  no 
more  than  the  chief  of  a  race,  and  of  a  household  ;  there  was 
no  society  in  his  days,  no  suspicion  of  a  reciprocity  of  rights 
and  duties.  This  was  the  true  Oriental  concej^tion  of  exist- 
ence. Peter  returned  from  the  west,  brin-^ing  with  him  a 
social  ])rinciple,  which  he  ]Mit  forward  with  all  his  usual 
determination  and  e.xaggeraticjn.  He  proclaimed  himself 
the  first  servant  of  his.  country,  and  carried  this  idea  to  an 
extreme  and  fantastic  point.  In  1709  he  wrote  to  Field- 
Marshal  Sheremctief,  asking  him  to  su[iport  his  application 
to  the  sovereign — that  is  to  say,  to   Romodanovski — to  be 


PRINCIPLES  AND  SYSTEM  OF  GOVERNMENT       173 

promoted  rear-admiral,  humbly  pleading  his  own  cause,  and 
reciting  his  services.  In  17 14  he  received,  and  uncomplain- 
ingly accepted,  the  refusal  of  the  Admiralty  to  his  re- 
quest for  promotion.  In  1723,  when  he  was  with  the 
fleet  at  Revel,  he  asked  for  a  doctor's  certificate  to  enable 
him  to  get  leave  from  the  Lord  High  Admiral  to  sleep  on 
shore.^  He  built  himself  a  country  house  near  Revel,  which 
he  christened  CatJiarmenthal,  and  expressed  astonishment, 
on  the  occasion  of  his  first  visit  to  it,  at  seeing  the  park  quite 
empty.  Did  people  think  that  he  had  set  so  many  hands  to 
work,  and  spent  so  much  money,  for  no  one's  benefit  but  his 
own?  The  very  next  morning  the  town  crier  informed  the 
inhabitants  of  Revel  that  the  park  was  theirs,  for  their  free 
and  unrestricted  use.^  Immediately  after  his  accession  to 
the  throne,  he.  divided  the  considerable  fortune  amassed  by 
his  father  and  his  grandfather  into  two  parts.  By  means  of 
the  privileges  and  monopolies  assigned  to  the  sovereign,  the 
Tsar  Alexis  had  accumulated  10,734  diessiatbies  of  cultivated 
land  and  50,000  houses,  bringing  in  a  revenue  of  200,000 
roubles.  Peter  would  keep  none  of  this.  He  made  all  his 
wealth  over  to  the  State,  only  reserving  the  modest  patri- 
mony of  the  Romanofs,  '800  souls'  in  the  Government  of 
Novgorod,  for  his  private  use.^  The  only  increase  of  income 
he  would  accept,  was  the  usual  pay  of  the  various  grades  he 
successively  held  in  the  anny  and  in  the  fleet.  Receipts, 
signed  by  his  hand,  are  still  preserved,  acknowledging  the 
sum  of  366  roubles,  the  amount  of  his  annual  pay  as  a  chief 
carpenter.  We  also  have  his  account  book,  which,  though 
not  very  regularly  kept,  is  full  of  curious  details.  '  In  1705 
I  earned  366  roubles  for  my  work  in  the  Voroneje  shipyards, 
and  40  roubles  as  my  captain's  pay;  in  1706,  156  roubles 
altogether,  received  at  Kief;  in  1707,  received  at  Grodno, 
my  colonel's  pay,  460  roubles.  Expenses — In  1707,  gave  at 
Vilna,  for  a  monastery,  150  roubles  ;  for  stuffs  bought  in  the 
same  town,  39  roubles  ;  to  Anisia  Kirillovna,  for  wearing 
apparel,  26  roubles  ;  to  Prince  George  Shahofsko'i  for  wear- 
ing apparel,  41  roubles  ;  to  the  aide-de-camp  Bartcnief,  for 
a  ver)-  important  errand,  50  roubles.'*     Going  one  day  round 

'  Sbornik,  vol.  xxv.  p.  152.     Golikof,   vol.   v.  p.   257.      Bergholz,   Biischings- 
Magnzin,  vol.  xxi.  p.  281.  '^  Scherer,  vol.  iii.  p.  65. 

•*  Karnovitch,  Greiit  Russian  Fortunes  (St.  Petersburg),  1S85,  p.  27. 
*  Cabinet,  Series  I.,  No.  64,  iVritings  and  Correspondence,  vol.  iii.  p.  31. 


174  PETER  THE  GREAT 

the  forges  at  Istic,  in  the  Government  of  Riazan,  he  mingled 
with  the  workmen,  toiled,  hammer  in  hand,  for  several  hours, 
and  then  counted  up  his  gains.  He  had  earned  i8  altifics 
(copper  coins  of  3  kopecks  each)  for  a  corresponding  number 
of  poods  of  metal,  on  which  he  had  spent  his  strength.  He 
drew  the  monc)',  and  gleefully  announced  that  as  soon  as  he 
got  back  to  iVIoscow  he  should  go  to  the  Riady  (a  sort  of 
bazaar),  and  there  spend  it  on  a  pair  of  shoes,  those  he  had 
on  his  feet  being  quite  worn  out.^ 

Something  there  was,  at  once  touching  and  imposing, 
about  this  attitude  of  mind,  but  it  had  another  side.  To 
begin  with,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  whim  about  it,  and  of 
this  the  great  man  himself  was  well  aware.  Writing  to 
Catherine  from  Helsingfors,  in  1713,116  says,  '  On  the  6th 
of  this  month  the  Admiral  promoted  me  to  the  rank  of 
General,  whereupon  I  beg  to  congratulate  the  General's  wife. 
A  strange  business  !  I  was  made  a  Rear-Admiral  while  I  was 
campaigning  on  the  Steppes,  and  here  I  am  a  General  while 
I  am  at  sea.'-  Xartofs  story  of  the  Tsar's  meeting  with 
Romodanovski,  on  the  Preobrajenskoie  Road,  throws  a 
comical  light  on  the  perpetual  ambiguity  which  it  pleased 
him  to  keep  up,  between  the  reality  of  his  rank,  and  the 
fiction  of  his  assumed  position.  Peter,  seated,  as  usual,  in 
his  unpretending  vehicle,  saluted  the  mock  sovereign,  giving 
him  his  ixXXc,'  iMcin  g)iddigei'  Her  Kaiser,'  hui  forgetting  to 
uncover.  Romodanoxski — in  a  splendid  carriage,  surrounded 
by  a  numerous  suite,  and  preceded  by  a  footman,  who  drove 
back  the  crowd  with  a  heavy  whip,  shouting  '  Stand  back  ! 
hats  off!' — swept  by  like  a  whirlwind,  casting  a  furious 
glance  on  the  real  sovereign.  An  hour  later  he  sent  for 
Peter  MihaTlof,  and  without  himself  rising,  or  offering  him  a 
seat,  roughly  addressed  him,  inquiring  what  he  meant  by 
not  baring  his  head  when  he  saluted  him.  '  I  did  not  recog- 
nise your  Majesty  in  your  Tartar  dress,'  was  Peter's  reply.^ 
And  his  Majesty  did  not  press  the  matter,  remembering, 
doubtless,  a  certain  letter  received  from  Peter  Mihailof  in 
consequence  of  a  complaint  made  by  James  Bruce,  and  thus 
beginning  :  '  Wild  beast !  {Zvier)  how  long  will  you  go  on 
ill-treating  people  thus.-'  I'.ven  here'  (Peter  was  then  in 
Holland)  '  the  wretches  you  have  maimed  come  to  me.     Let 

»  N.-irlof,  p.  55. 

*  LonespoHtkiice,  i86i  efiiticm,  p.  34.  '  Nartof,  p.  93. 


PRINCIPLES  AND  SYSTEM  OF  GOVERNMENT       175 

there  be  an  end  to  your  too  great  intimacy  with  Ivashka 
(drunkenness) ! '  ^ 

Another,  and  a  much  more  serious,  fault  appears.  All 
this  false  humility,  and  all  the  very  real  self-sacrifice  which 
goes  with  it,  do  not  prevent  the  relations  of  this  man  with 
the  nation  he  professes  to  serve — and  for  which,  indeed,  he 
strips  himself  and  sacrifices  his  whole  existence — from  being 
not  only  of  the  most  exacting — that  might  be  justified — but 
of  the  most  arbitrarily  despotic  nature.  He  evidently  looks 
on  all  service  and  sacrifice  as  being  only  the  due  of  that 
towering  and  merciless  ideal,  to  which  every  one,  like  him- 
self, is  bound  to  contribute.  But,  granting  this,  he  might 
have  been  expected  to  make  some  allowance  for  natural  lack 
of  aptitude,  for  weakness,  for  mental  inadequacy,  and  indi- 
vidual incapacity.  He  would  not  even  admit  the  existence 
of  such  failings.  The  man  who  did  not  take  up  his  appointed 
place,  and  there  perform  the  task  assigned  him,  was  held 
a  traitor,  a  relapser,  and,  as  such,  was  forthwith  outlawed. 
His  property,  if  he  had  any,  was  sequestrated, — for,  being 
good  for  nothing,  he  was  not  worthy  to  possess  anything. 
He  was  allotted  a  small  subsistence  out  of  his  own  income, 
the  rest  passed  to  his  relations,  and  their  mere  declaration, 
confirmed  by  him,  and  presented  to  the  Senate,  sufficed  for 
the  transfer.  If  he  was  old  enough  to  marry,  he  was  for- 
bidden to  take  a  wife,  lest  his  children  should  be  like  him- 
self,— for  the  State  had  no  need  of  such  persons.-  At  Moscow, 
in  December  1704,  Peter  himself  inspected  all  the  staff  at  his 
disposal,  Bo'iars,  Stolniks,  Dvorianin,  and  other  officials  of 
every  kind.  Against  each  name  he  wrote  with  his  own  hand 
some  special  duty  to  be  performed.^  If  any  man  failed  in 
his  functions,  or  tried  to  slip  out  of  their  performance,  his 
punishment,  at  the  very  least,  was  civil  death. 

But  was  the  toiler  free  when  once  his  task  was  finished  ? 
No,  indeed  ;  for  the  principle,  in  virtue  of  which  he  had  been 
called  upon  to  labour,  claimed  him  altogether.  His  body 
and  his  soul,  his  thoughts,  his  occupations,  his  ver}'  pleasures 
belonged  to  the  Tsar.  And  here  we  see  the  consequence  of 
the  confusion  between  the  idea  itself  and  the  man  who  repre- 

^  Correspondence,  Dec.  22,  1697,  vol.  i.  p.  226.     Compare  Oustrialof,  vol.  iii 

P-  95- 

-  Ukase,  dated  Dec.  6,  1722.     Golikof,  vol.  ix.  p.  83. 
'  Golikof,  vol.  ii.  p.  513. 


176  PETER  THE  GREAT 

sentcd  it.  There  was  only  one  goal,  and  one  road  which  led 
to  it.  '1  he  Tsar  led  the  van,  and  all  the  rest  must  follow. 
His  subjects  had  to  do  what  he  did,  think  as  he  thou;4ht, 
believe  what  he  believed,  and  even  take  their  amusements 
when,  and  as,  he  took  his.  They  had  to  do  without  bridges 
across  the  Neva,  because  he  liked  crossing  the  river  in  a  boat, 
and  they  had  to  shave  their  beards,  because  his  beard  grew 
sparseK'.  They  must  even  get  drunk  when  he  got  drunk  ; 
dress  themselves  up  as  cardinals,  or  as  monkc\'s,  if  that 
pleased  him  ;  scoff  at  God  and  His  saints,  if  the  fancy  took 
him  ;  and  very  likely  spend  seven  hours  with  him  in  church 
on  the  following  day.  Any  resistance,  any  weakness,  a  mere 
lack  of  comprehension,  a  sign  of  visible  effort,  a  symptom  of 
disgust,  or  a  mere  failure  in  understanding  instructions,  was 
punished  with  the  rod,  the  lash,  or  even  the  headsman's  axe. 
The  so-called  servant  would  raise  his  hand  upon  his  master, 
to  strike,  and  often  to  kill  him.  In  March  1704,  Prince 
Alexis  Bariatinski  was  whipped  in  the  public  square  for 
having  failed  to  bring  up  a  few  recruits  for  inspection.  In 
that  very  same  year  Gregory  Kamynin  underwent  the  same 
punishment  for  having  refused  to  share  in  the  delights  of  the 
SlavUni^} 


III  -* 

These  contradictions,  flagrant  as  the}'  are,  can  be  ex- 
plained. Peter  was  a  violent  reformer.  His  reform  was 
revolutionary  in  character,  and  his  government  consequently 
partook  of  those  conditions  of  existence,  and  of  action,  which 
have  always  been  the  inseparable  concomitants  of  a  political 
and  social  state  of  revolution.  Again,  his  government,  in 
spite  of  its  revolutionary  character,  was  the  outcome,  to  a 
certain  extent,  of  the  former  course  of  the  national  history, 
customs,  and  traditions.  Of  this  fact  Peter  himself  was 
evidently  conscious.  On  one  of  the  triumphal  arches,  raised 
at  Moscow,  on  the  occasion  of  the  peace  with  Sweden,  in 
1 72 1,  the  effigy  of  the  reigning  Tsar  was  associated  with 
that  of  Ivan  the  Terrible.  Ihis  idea  emanated  from  the 
Duke  of  Holstein.  The  uncle  seems  to  sanction  the 
nephew's  action,  and  thus  to  claim  an  historical  connection, 

'  Jeliaboujski,  Afemoirs,  pp.  214,  225. 


PRINCIPLES  AND  SYSTEM  OF  GOVERNMENT       177 

which  is,  indeed,  constantly  confirmed  by  all  that  nephew's 
acts  and  ways  of  thought.^  But,  though  principles  might 
differ,  practice  daily  gave  the  lie  to  theory.  Theory,  in 
this  case,  was  frequently  liberal  in  the  extreme  ;  practice 
almost  always  stood  for  despotism,  arbitrary  rule,  inquisi- 
tion, downright  terrorism.  Peter's  reign  was  a  reign  of 
terror,  as  Cromwell's  had  been,  as  Robespierre's  was  to  be, 
but  with  a  special  stamp  of  savagery  of  its  own,  derived 
from  his  Asiatic  origin.  In  1691,  Basil  Galitzin,  Sophia's 
unfortunate  political  partner,  was  visited,  even  in  his  distant 
and  cruel  exile,  by  a  fresh  criminal  prosecution.  A 
tclicrniets  (monk)  had  heard  the  Ex-regent  foretell  the 
Tsar's  approaching  death.  Put  to  the  question,  several 
times  over,  he  still  adhered  to  his  denunciation.  The 
proofs  seemed  clear  enough,  yet  the  enquiry  ended  by 
establishing  that  the  monk  had  never  seen  the  exile,  and 
had  never  travelled  to  larensk,  v/here  he  was  interned.  The 
whole  story  had  been  invented  '  ot  bezoiiniia^  in  a  fit  of  frenzy, 
a  form  of  mental  alienation  common  both  in  Ivan's  reign 
and  in  Peter's,  resulting  from  the  constant  and  haunting 
terror  of  the  secret  police,  and  of  the  torture  chamber.  The 
whole  system  was  a  part  of  the  national  tradition.  The 
Russian  proverb,  '  The  knout  is  no  angel,  but  it  teaches 
men  to  tell  the  truth,'  contains  at  once  its  sanction  and  its 
apology.  Of  that  fact  Peter  was  deeply  convinced.  He 
was  himself  the  most  eager  of  inquisitors,  delighting  in  the 
monstrous  art,  drawing  up  manuscript  notes  for  the  conduct 
of  examinations,  in  which  he  frequently  took  a  personal 
share,  watching  the  smallest  details,  laying  stress  on  every 
word,  spying  the  slightest  gesture.  He  caused  a  private 
jeweller,  suspected  of  misappropriation,  to  be  brought  to  his 
palace  for  examination.  Twice  over,  for  an  hour  each  time,  he 
put  him  to  the  combined  tortures  of  the  strappado  and  the 
knout,  and  he  cheerfully  related  all  the  grisly  incidents  of  the 
business  to  the  Duke  of  Holstein,  that  v^ery  evening.-  With 
an  army  of  spies  and  detectives  already  at  his  beck  and 
call,  he  would  personally  supplement  their  efforts,  listening 
behind  doors,  and  moving  about  amongst  the  tables  during 
banquets,  when  enforced  libations  had  heated  men's  head.?, 
and  loosened  their  tongues.     He  would  set  men  to  watch 

^  Staehliii,  p.  217. 

"^  Siemievski,  The  Empress  Catherine  II.  (St.  Petersburg,  1884),  p.  154. 


178  PETER  THE  GREAT 

and  supervise  those  officials,  civil  or  military,  who  were 
stationed  too  far  from  him  to  be  under  his  personal  eye. 
He  corresponded  with  these  spies,  and  gave  them  very 
extensive  powers.  Field-Marshal  Shcrcmctief,  who  was 
emplo\-ed  to  put  down  a  revolt  in  Astrakhan,  was  thus 
watched  by  a  sers^eant  of  the  f^uard,  Shtchepotief  Baron 
Von  Schleinitz,  the  Tsar's  minister  in  Paris,  was  spied  on 
by  one  of  his  own  copying  clerks,  named  lourine.^  My 
readers  will  recognise  the  methods  which  sent  Bellcgarde, 
Dubois,  and  Dclmas,  to  represent  the  convention  in  the  camp 
of  General  Dumouriez.  1  here  is  a  close  family  resemblance 
between  all  revolutions. 

A  contemporary  memoir  writer  describes  a  single  year 
of  the  great  Russian  reign,  as  being  hardly  more  than  an 
enumeration  of  tortures  and  executions.-'  The  arrest  of 
one  culprit  brought  about  the  arrest  of  ten,  twenty,  or  even 
a  hundred  more.  The  man  was  first  of  all  put  to  the  torture, 
to  force  him  to  give  the  names  of  his  accomplices,  which 
names  he  gave,  not  unfrequently,  at  random.  When  his 
memory  failed  him,  a  sort  of  coarse  canvas  hood  was  put 
over  his  head,  and  he  was  led  through  the  streets,  in  search 
of  passers-by,  whom  he  might  point  out  to  the  officers  of 
justice.  Then  a  shout  would  rise,  more  terrible  e\'cn  than  the 
call  of  '  fire,'  and  the  most  populous  quarters  would  straight- 
way become  a  desert.  '  The  tongue,  the  tongue,'  thus  the 
populace  designated  the  involuntary,  but  generally  docile 
instrument  of  this  hunt  for  culprits,  and  forthwith  there  was 
a  general  sauve  qui  pent?  Secret  accusations  were  of  common 
occurrence.  A  series  of  ukases  provided  for  them,  offering 
encouragement  and  bounties  to  informers,  and  threatening 
any  persons  knowing  anything  affecting  the  safety  of  the 
Tsar  or  of  the  empire,  who  hesitated  to  come  forward,  with 
the  most  terrible  chastisements.^  The  usual  bounty  was  a 
sum  of  six  roubles,  but  in  special  circumstances,  it  rose  much 
higher.  In  1722,  ten  bags,  each  containing  100  roubles, 
were  laid,  with  a  lantern  beside  them,  in  one  of  the  Moscow 
squares.      The    contents,    according   to    an    announcement, 

^  Golikof,  vol.  viii.  ]i.  406.  -  Jeliaboujski,  p.  26. 

'  Ibid.,  p.  274  (Editor's  note). 

■*  Nov.  1st,  1705;  March  2n(],  1711  ;  Aiij;.  25th  and  Oct.  2Sth,  1715:  Jan. 
25th,  Sept.  26th,  and  Dec.  24th,  1716;  k\m\  i6lh  and  igih,  1717;  Jan.  19th, 
1718;  Ajiril  i6lh,  1719;  EeL).  9th  and  July  22nd,  1720;  Feb.  19th,  1721  ; 
Jan.  nth,  1722. 


PRirJIPLES  AND  SYSTEM  OF  GOVERNMENT       179 

placed  on  the  same  spot,  were  to  belong  to  any  person 
who  should  give  information  as  to  the  author  of  a  pamphlet 
against  the  Tsar,  which  had  been  found  in  one  of  the 
churches  within  the  Kreml.  The  informer  was  further 
promised  a  gift  of  land,  and  a  post  in  the  public  service. 
Any  man  who  chose  to  pronounce  the  time-honoured 
formula,  Slovo  i  dielo  (literally  '  word  and  action  '),  and  thus 
to  affirm  his  knowledge  or  suspicion  of  any  act  punishable 
by  the  secret  police,  could  call  for  a  criminal  enquiry.  And 
a  very  small  thing,  an  imprudent  word  or  even  less,  was 
held  to  justify  suspicion.  A  peasant  was  put  to  the  torture, 
and  condemned  to  hard  labour  for  life,  for  having,  when  in  a 
state  of  intoxication,  done  obeisance  to  the  Tsar  '  in  an  un- 
usual manner.'  Another  shared  his  fate  for  not  having  been 
aware  that  the  Tsar  had  assumed  the  title  of  Emperor.  A 
priest  who  had  spoken  of  the  sovereign's  illness,  and  had 
appeared  to  admit  the  possibility  of  his  death,  was  sent  as 
a  convict  to  Siberia.  A  woman  found  letters,  traced  by  an 
unknown  hand,  and  in  an  unknown  tongue,  on  a  barrel  of 
beer  in  her  own  cellar.  She  was  examined,  could  give  no 
explanation,  and  died  under  the  knout.  Another  woman's 
screams  and  wild  convulsions  disturbed  the  service  in  church. 
She  was  blind,  and  probably  epileptic,  but  there  was  just  a 
chance  that  she  might  have  deliberately  attempted  to  cause 
scandal.  She  w^as  put  to  the  question.  A  tipsy  student  who 
had  spoken  some  unseemly  words,  was  given  thirty  lashes 
with  the  knout ;  his  nostrils  were  torn  out,  and  he  was  sent 
to  hard  labour  for  life.  I  quote  from-  official  documents, 
from  the  minutes  of  the  Russian  Star  Chamber,^  and,  save 
for  the  knout,  I  could  easily  have  mistaken  them  for  the 
minutes  of  the  Courts  presided  over  b}'  Couthon,  and  St 
Just. 

Peter  was  not,  indeed,  altogether  devoid  of  any  idea  of 
clemency.  He  is  superior,  in  this  matter,  to  the  ordinary 
type  of  revolutionists,  and  justifies  the  idea  I  have  formed  of 
his  character.  -  In  1708,  I  find  him  desiring  Dolgorouki  to 
treat  those  members  of  Boulavin's  insurrection,  who  should 
willingly  make  their  submission,  with  indulgence.  When 
Dolgorouki  betrays  his  astonishment,  the  Tsar  insists, 
pointing  out  the  necessity  of  distinguishing  cases  in  which 
severity  was  indispensable  from  those  in  which  it  ma}'  be 

^  Sitinievski,  Glovo  i  Dido,  p.  51. 


l8o  PETER  THE  GREAT 

relaxed.       lUit    Dolgorouki's    wonder    proves    the    settled 
ferocity  of  tlie  rrcneral  tendency  of  Peter's  rule. 

This  severity  lasted  till  the  end  of  his  reign.  How  came 
it  to  have  been  so  long  paticntl)'  endured  ?  Surely  because 
it  corresponded  with  the  national  customs.  The  whole 
nation  was  a  party  to  it.  There  was  no  public  sentiment  of 
dislike  to  the  person  or  the  act  of  an  informer.  A  century 
and  a  half  later,  this  condition  of  mind  remained  almost  un- 
changed. The  most  popular  lines,  probably,  of  the  most 
popular  of  all  the  national  poets,  describe  a  Cossack's  ride 
across  the  Steppes,  carry  an  accusation  to  the  Tsar.^ 


IV 

A  special  characteristic  of  the  great  Reformer's  methods  is 
his  incessant  use  of  threats.  When  Nieplouief,  his  Resident 
at  Constantinople,  was  taking  his  final  leave,  he  addressed 
him  by  the  name  of  Father.  The  Tsar  interrupted  him,  '  A 
father  I  will  be  to  thee  if  thy  conduct  is  good — if  not,  I  will 
be  thy  merciless  judge  1'^  He  ordered  General  Repnin  to 
prevent  wood,  sent  from  Poland,  from  being  admitted  into 
Riga,  adding,  '  If  a  single  faggot  gets  through,  I  swear  by 
God,  thy  head  shall  be  cut  off!'^  And  this  was  no  empty 
threat.  When  he  wrote  to  his  friend  Vinnius,  in  1696,  in 
reference  to  a  careless  correspondent,  '  Tell  him  I  will  lay 
what  he  fails  to  put  on  paper  on  his  own  back,'  *  we  feel  he 
used  no  figure  of  speech.  He  would  often  send  for  officials, 
high  and  low,  with  whom  he  had  to  find  fault,  into  his 
cabinet,  and  would  there  indicate  his  displeasure  by  a  sound 
drubbing  with  his  doubiua.  This,  indeed,  was  considered  a 
mark  of  favour — it  being  the  sovereign's  will  that,  on  such 
occasions,  fault  and  punishment  alike  should  be  kept  secret. 
The  only  persons  present  were  such  faithful  servants  as 
Nartof,  and  the  culprits  composed  their  countenances  as  best 
they  could,  before  leaving  the  Imperial  presence,  so  that  no 
sign  of  the  occurrence  might  appear.  As  a  general  rule,  to 
complete  the  illusion,  the}-  were  commanded  to  dinner  on  the 

'  Poushkin,  Poltava,  Canto  I.  (Collected  Works,  18S7  edition),  vol.  iii.  p.  118. 

*  (jolikof,  vo!.  viii.  p.  132. 

'  19th  May  1705,    Writings  and  Correspon,h'nc(,  vol.  iii.  p.  346. 

*  15th  July  1696,   Writings  an,i  Correspondence,  vol.  i.  p.  90. 


PRINCIPLES  AND  SYSTEM  OF  GOVERNMENT       i8i 

same  day.  But  occasionally  the  do7tlnna  did  its  work  in 
public,  in  the  offices  of  some  administrative  body,  or  even  in 
the  open  street.  Sometimes — and  this  was  a  great  proof  of 
the  sovereign's  esteem  and  friendship  for  the  person  so  com- 
missioned— a  third  party  was  deputed  to  administer  the 
extra-judicial  correction.  When  Captain  Sieniavin  took 
the  two  first  Swedish  vessels  which  fell  into  Russian  hands, 
he  at  once  became  the  chief  favourite  of  the  moment.  Peter 
sent  for  him,  and  said,  '  To-morrow  you  will  dine  in  the  house 
of  such  a  person ;  during  the  meal  you  will  pick  a  quarrel  with 
him,  and  you  will  give  him,  in  my  presence,  fifty  blows  with 
your  stick,  neither  more  nor  less.'  And  the  sovereign  evi- 
dently considered  this  participation  in  the  punishment  in- 
flicted by  the  Imperial  will,  which  chastised  one  man  and 
rewarded  another,  as  reflecting  considerable  honour  on  both.^ 
During  the  Persian  campaign,  another  temporary  favourite, 
Wolynski,  was  accosted  one  night,  close  to  the  Imperial  tent, 
and,  without  a  word  of  explanation,  overwhelmed  by  a  shower 
of  blows.  All  at  once,  the  Tsar  held  his  hand.  The  dark- 
ness and  a  chance  resemblance  had  misled  him ;  there  had 
been  a  miscarriage  of  justice.  All  he  vouchsafed  was  coolly 
to  remark,  '  No  matter !  Thou  art  sure  one  day  to  deserve 
what  I  have  given  thee  now  ;  thou  wilt  only  have  to  remind 
me,  then,  that  the  debt  is  paid.'  And  the  opportunity  was 
not  long  in  coming.- 

The  Tsar's  irascibility,  and  habitual  fits  of  rage,  certainly 
had  something  to  do  with  these  summary  chastisements,  but 
they  were  also  the  outcome  of  a  certain  deliberate  system. 
Coming  one  day,  unexpectedly,  into  a  naval  captain's  cabin, 
Peter  noticed  an  open  book,  which  the  officer  vainly  en- 
deavoured to  conceal.  Glancing  at  the  page,  he  read  the 
following  aphorism  aloud  ;  *  Russia  is  like  a  cod-fish  ;  unless 
you  beat  it  constantly,  you  can  do  nothing  with  it.'  The 
Tsar  smiled,  and  departed,  saying,  '  That  is  well  !  The  books 
you  read  are  useful  books.     You  shall  be  promoted  ! '  ^ 

The  doubina,  as  I  have  said,  was  kept  for  those  he  loved, 
and  would  fain  spare  ;  the  rest  had  to  do  with  a  very  different 
form  of  the  judicial  power.  Uniformity  of  punishment  is  one 
of  the  chief  characteristics  of  the  criminal  legislation  of  that 
period.     The  legislator  never  measured  his  severity  by  the 

Memoirs  (published  by  Prince  Galitzin,  Paris,  1862),  p.  133. 
'  Sclierer,  vol.  iii.  p.  32.  ^  Jbid.,  vol.  i.  p.  15. 


i83  PETER  THE  GREAT 

degree  of  culpability  inherent  to  the  crimes  to  be  suppressed 
— all  he  thought  of  was  his  personal  interest  in  their  repres- 
sion. Now  as  this  interest,  which  was  also  the  interest  of 
the  State,  admitted  of  no  gradation,  neither  did  the  punish- 
ments to  be  inflicted  admit  of  any.  The  civil  ukases  and 
regulations  were  just  as  ferocious  as  those  applied  to  military 
matters.  Death  to  the  soldier  marching  to  the  assault,  who 
shall  give  vent  to  'wild  cries,*  or  stop  to  pick  up  a  wounded 
man,  '  even  his  own  father.'  Death  to  the  office  clerk,  who 
should  not  complete  a  given  piece  of  work  within  the  time 
the  law  prescribed.     Death,  in  almost  every  imaginable  case.^ 

Towards  the  end  of  the  reign,  the  mutual  dread  and  dis- 
trust had  grown  so  universal,  that  life  in  the  Tsar's  imme- 
diate circle  was  really  intolerable.  He  watched  every  one, 
and  every  one  watched  him,  and  watched  his  neighbour,  with 
anxious  and  suspicious  eyes.  He  concealed  his  smallest 
plans,  and  every  one  else  did  the  same.  Every  business 
matter,  whether  diplomatic  or  other,  was  shrouded  in  im- 
penetrable mystery.  Conversation  was  carried  on  in  whispers; 
correspondence  was  crammed  with  ambiguous  terms.  At  a 
gathering  in  the  house  of  Prince  Dolgorouki,  in  February 
1723,  Ostermann  addressed  Campredon,  and  drew  him 
gradually  and  cautiously  into  a  window.  He  had  a  message 
for  him,  he  said,  for  the  Tsar.  Campredon  was  all  ears, 
when,  suddenl}',  the  expected  disclosure  died  on  the  Chan- 
cellor's lips,  and  he  would  utter  nothing  but  commonplaces. 
A  third  party  had,  as  he  fancied,  drawn  too  near  them.  Then 
came  the  Tsar  himself.  He  made  the  French  Minister  sit 
familiarly  beside  him,  and  lavished  compliments  upon  him. 
]-}ut  when  the  envoy  tried  to  come  to  the  point,  he  pretended 
not  to  hear  him,  drowned  his  voice  with  noisy  exclamations, 
and  then  left  him,  whispering  the  words,  '  I  will  give  orders 
to  have  terms  arranged  with  you.'  All  this  fuss  was  over  the 
marriage  of  the  Grand  Duchess  Elizabeth  with  the  Duke  de 
Chartres  ;  and  the  first  appointment  to  talk  the  matter  over, 
made  subsecjuently  by  Ostermann  with  Camjiredon,  was 
fi.xed  for  six  o'clock  in  the  morning,  as  being  more  likely  to 
escape  observation.^ 

Two  years  before,  in  the  midst  of  the  negotiations  begun 

*  Pder  I.^s   Writings  and  Correspondence,  vol.  iii.  p.  77.      Filippof,   Peter  the 
Great  and  the  Penal  La'os,  page  283,  etc. 
-' Camprcdon's  Despatches,  Fel).  12,  1723  (I'rcnch  Foreign  Office). 


PRINCIPLES  AND  SYSTEM  OF  GOVERNMENT       183 

in  December  1721,  to  guarantee  his  own  succession,  the 
Tsar's  interviews  witli  Campredun  had  taken  place  in  the 
house  of  Jagoujinski,  and  without  Ostermann's  knowledge. 
The  first  thing  Peter  then  demanded,  was  to  be  enlightened 
on  a  point  which  was  of  the  utmost  importance  to  himself, 
but  which  had  no  relation  whatsoever  to  the  subject  under 
discussion.  He  had,  it  would  appear,  during  his  visit  to 
Paris,  begun,  and  personally  carried  on,  some  other  negoti- 
ation, the  secret  of  which  had  been  betrayed.  How  and  by 
whom?  Campredon  was  desired  to  send  a  courier  to  the 
Regent,  with  orders  to  bring  back  a  prompt  reply  to  these 
questions.  The  Regent,  according  to  his  wont,  carefully  sent 
the  despatch  on  to  the  King  of  England,  who,  quite  unmoved, 
wrote  on  the  margin,  '  All  this  convinces  me  that  the  Tsar's 
ministers,  who  are  endeavouring  to  destroy  each  other,  have 
found  means  to  inspire  him  with  suspicions  as  to  some  of 
their  number,  and  that  he  is  dying  to  find  a  pretext  to  have 
them  impaled  as  soon  as  possible.  I  believe  this  to  be  the 
sole  reason  for  his  curiosity.'  And  further  on  he  writes,  '  This 
confirms  me  in  my  conviction  that  the  Tsar  desires  to  impale 
somebody.'  ^ 

It  is  a  curious  fact,  that  all  the  rigorous  penalties  by 
which  the  implacable  ruler  endeavoured  to  enforce  that 
universal  service,  which  he  desired  to  impose,  on  his  subjects, 
did  not  succeed  in  preventing  numerous  and  constantly  in- 
creasing desertions.  In  vain  did  he  answer  these  by  increased 
severity.  A  regulation  of  the  War  Department,  dated  17 12, 
decreed  the  use  of  the  brand  for  military  recruits,  as  well  as 
for  convicts.  There  is  even  a  legend  connected  with  this 
matter,  according  to  which  the  Tsar,  in  his  contempt  for  the 
ancient  faith,  marked  his  soldiers  with  the  sign  of  Antichrist. 
The  brand  chosen  was,  in  fact,  a  cross,  tatooed  on  the  left 
hand  ;  the  outline  was  pricked  into  the  skin,  and  covered 
with  a  pinch  of  powder  which  was  set  alight.  It  is  worthy 
of  remark,  that  one  of  Peter's  letters,  with  reference  to  this 
barbarous  custom,  is  also  filled  with  directions,  which  prove 
the  greatest  solicitude  for  the  comfort  of  the  poor  tatooed 
fellows,  during  their  long  marches  to  rejoin  their  depots.^ 
The  practical -mindedness  of  the  great  Reformer  is  clearly 
shown  in  this  contradictory  epistle — a  practical-mindcdness 

'  Cam])redon's  Despatches,  Dec.  21,  1721. 
'^  Russian  Archives,  1S73,  pp.  2067  and  2296. 

13 


iS4  PETER  THE  GREAT 

sui^i^esting  the  employment  of  the  most  healthy,  and  there- 
fore the  most  payiiif^,  methods  of  trcatinj^  those  liimian  forces 
which  his  merciless  eai^crncss  led  him,  at  the  same  time, 
cruelly  to  overtax.  In  ci\"il  matters,  desertion,  as  I  have 
already  said,  was  punished  with  infamy  and  outlawry.  '  If,' 
so  runs  a  ukase,  published  in  1722,  'any  man  should  rob  one 
of  these  deserters,  wound  him,  or  kill  him,  he  is  not  liable  to 
punishment.'  The  names  of  the  outlaws  were  made  known 
to  the  jHiblic  by  means  of  lists  hung  upon  gallows.  The  half 
of  a  deserter's  goods  was  promised  to  the  person  who  should 
take  him  alive,  even  if  the  ca])turcr  was  the  serf  of  the 
captured  man.  The  other  half  went  to  the  Treasury.^  And 
still  the  desertions  went  on. 

'  Near  the  Tsar,  near  death,'  says  a  Russian  proverb. 
Many  people  preferred  safety  of  any  kind.  The  presence, 
in  Peter's  circle,  of  so  many  parvenus  of  low  extraction, — 
Menshikof,  Loukin,  Troi'ckourof,  Vladimirof,  Sklaief,  Pos- 
piclof, — is  explained,  independently  of  his  personal  prefer- 
ences, by  this  general  sanve  qui  pent  amongst  the  great 
Russian  families.^  And  the  part  played  by  these  parvenus, 
in  the  political  system  of  which  they  formed  an  integral  jiart, 
made  it  still  more  oppressive.  Peter's  personal  government 
was  often  the  hardest,  the  most  overwhelming,  the  most  dis- 
quieting of  realities.  But  it  not  unfrcquenth'  became  a  mere 
fiction,  and  the  change  brought  no  improvement.  In  spite 
of  his  huge  expenditure  of  labour  and  of  energy,  in  spite  of 
all  his  constant  goings  and  comings,  the  Tsar  could  not  see 
e\erything  with  his  own  eyes,  and  do  everything  with  his 
own  hands.  During  his  absences  with  his  army,  when  he 
was  travelling  abroad,  or  through  the  huge  provinces  of  his 
own  realm,  power  passed  into  the  hands  of  Meaishikof  and 
his  fellows.  They  used  it,  and  more  frequently  abused  it, 
after  their  own  fashion.  They  were  called  on,  periodically, 
U)  render  up  an  account,  which  was  not  unfrequentl}'  settled 
by  the  executioner.  But,  li\ing  as  they  did,  like  every  one 
else,  from  hand  to  mouth,  subject  to  the  common  terror  and 
the  universal  bewilderment,  they  took  full  advantage  of  their 
short  hours  of  freedom,  and  thus  increased  the  overwhelming 
weight  and  cruel  pressure  of  the  terrible  Juggernaut  which, 
sooner  or  later,  was  to  crush  them  all.  The  sx^stem  of  favour- 
itism which  has  cost  Russia  so  much  gold,  .so  many  tears, 

'  Golikof,  vol.  ix.  p.  4S.  "^  See  Strahlenberg,  p.  238,  etc. 


PRINCIPLES  AND  SYSTEM  OF  GOVERNMENT        185 

and  such  streams  of  blood,  was  not  indeed  of  Peter's  own 
creation.  It  was  a  legacy  from  the  past,  which  he  had  not 
courage  to  repudiate,  which  indeed  he  consecrated,  and  the 
tradition  of  which  he  developed,  by  his  own  adherence  to  it. 

He  was,  in  some  respects,  even  in  that  economic  depart- 
ment, wherein,  at  first  sight,  he  would  appear  to  have  worked 
such  a  radical  change,  the  true  heir  and  follower  of  his  an- 
cestral traditions.  He  did  away  with  that  system  of  mono- 
polies and  royal  privileges  which  had  made  his  predecessors 
the  foremost  merchants  in  their  country.  But,  in  September 
17 1 3,  having  to  fetch  a  sum  of  money  from  Lubeck  to  St. 
Petersburg,  he  ordered  the  cargo  of  the  galliot,  which  was  to 
be  sent  on  this  errand,  to  be  completed  with  merchandise 
likely  to  sell  at  a  good  profit  in  St.  Petersburg.^  This  is  quite 
in  the  manner  of  the  old  rulers  of  the  Kreml,  all  of  them 
greedy  of  every  kind  of  profit,  and  by  no  means  scorning  the 
very  smallest.  At  a  masquerade,  during  the  fetes  given  at 
Moscow  in  1722,  I  notice  the  description  of  a  bearded 
Neptune  who  played  quite  a  special  part.  The  Tsar's 
fiiithful  subjects  were  invited  to  fasten  golden  ducats  to  the 
hairs  of  that  symbolic  beard,  which  was  shortly  to  fall  under 
the  scissors  of  a  barber, — none  other  than  Peter  himself  A 
captain  of  the  Guard,  accompanied  by  a  clerk,  followed  the 
sea-god  through  the  streets,  and  carefully  registered  the 
ducats,  and  the  names  of  those  who  gave  them.^ 

Even  his  wonderful  knowledge  of  stage  effect  was  con- 
nected, in  a  way,  with  the  spirit  of  bygone  times.  'Whenever 
the  smallest  advantage  is  gained,'  observes  the  Dutch  Resi- 
dent, Van  Der  Hulst,  in  1700,  *  there  is  a  noise  made  about 
it  here,  as  if  the  whole  universe  had  been  overthrown.'  Dur- 
ing the  disastrous  period  of  the  Swedish  war,  salvoes  of 
cannon,  fireworks,  extra  promotion  lists,  and  distributions 
of  rewards,  followed  each  other  in  quick  succession.  This 
was  an  endeavour,  no  doubt,  and  a  laudable  one,  to  mislead 
public  opinion,  so  as  to  prevent  discouragement,  and  also, 
perhaps,  to  put  heart  into  the  Tsar  himself  l-Jut  it  was 
quite  in  Sophia's  manner,  and  thoroughly  Oriental  in  spirit. 
'Ihe  English  Envoy  Whitworth,  when  at  table  with  the  Tsar, 
in  1705,  was  confronted  with  a  Russian  soldier,  who,  so  he 
averred,  had,  with   forty-four  comrades,  prisoners  like  him- 

'  (Jolikof,  vol.  V.  p.  C36. 

^  Bergliclz,  Biischiti^s-Magazin,  vol.  xx.  p.  38";. 


l86  PETER  THE  GREAT 

self,  been  mutilated  b}-  the  Swedes.  Peter  made  this  the  text 
of  a  loiiL^  sermon  on  the  barbarity  of  his  enemies,  which, 
he  declared,  far  exceeded  that  of  the  nation  over  which  he 
ruled.  '  Never,'  he  vowed,  '  had  any  Swedish  prisoner  been 
so  treated  in  Russia,  and  he  would  forthwith  send  these 
forty-five  mutilated  men  into  his  different  regiments,  to  warn 
their  comrades  of  what  they  had  to  expect  from  such  a 
treacherous  enemy.'  1  he  Tsar's  trick  failed.  Whitworth 
was  conxinced  that  he  was  being  made  game  of,  all  the  more 
as  he  had  naturally  not  understood  a  word  of  the  Russian 
soldier's  story.^  But  the  whole  incident  is  thoroughly 
Byzantine  in  its  nature. 

This  peculiarity  it  was,  in  part,  which  bound  the  Tsar 
so  closely  and  so  firrhly  to  the  flesh  and  sjjirit  of  his 
people,  to  their  past  and  to  their  present, — and  which  has 
made  him  so  permanent  a  factor  in  their  very  existence. 
Had  his  despotism  been  more  logical,  less  influenced  by  the 
very  air  of  the  country  he  was  sent  to  rule,  its  results  would 
have  been  more  short-lived. 

^  Despatch,  dated  2nd  May  1705.     Sbornik,  vol.  xxxix.  p.  79. 


CHAPTER    IV 

PRIVATE     LIFE 

The  cottage  at  St.  Petersburg — The  pilot's  dinner — Katia — Palaces  and 
country  houses — The  hme  tree  at  Strielna — Peterhof— Tsarkoie-Sielo — 
Revel. 

A  day  in  the  great  man's  life — His  morning  work — His  table —Private 
meals  and  State  dinners — Catherine's  kitchen — What  Peter  ate  and 
drank — Court  luxury  and  domestic  simplicity — Menshikof's  coach  and 
the  Tsar's  cabriolet — His  dress — His  roughness  and  coarse  habits — 
Cockroaches. 

His  amusements — Neither  a  sportsman  nor  a  gambler — The  water  his  chief 
delight — Winter  cruises— All  St  Petersburg  at  sea — Animals — Finette 
and  Lisette — A  dog's  part  in  politics. 

Social  habits— Meeting  with  the  Margravine  of  Baireuth — In  the  German 
suburb — Boon  companions — The  Tsar's  couchcr — His  pillow — His 
intimate  circle  —  The  Dienshtchiks  —  A  favourite's  marriage  —  Maria 
Matvieief. 


In  November,  1703,  the  first  merchant  vessel,  a  Dutch  galHot, 
laden  with  salt  and  wine  from  Friesland,  entered  the  mouth 
of  the  Neva.  The  Governor  of  St  Petersburg  invited  the 
captain  to  a  banquet,  and  lavished  presents  on  him  and  on 
his  crew.^  But  before  this  entertainment  took  place,  he  had 
to  accept  the  hospitality  of  the  pilot,  who  had  directed  the 
course  of  his  ship  into  harbour.  He  dined  with  him  and  with 
his  wife  in  a  modest  cottage  on  the  river  bank.  The  fare  con- 
sisted of  national  dishes,  to  which  a  few  dainties,  peculiar  to 
his  own  country,  had  been  added.  At  dessert,  not  desiring 
to  be  behindhand  in  politeness  and  generosity,  the  worthy 
captain  drew  from  his  wallet,  first  of  all,  a  delicious  cheese, 
and  then  a  piece  of  linen,  which  he  presented  to  the  mistress 
of  the  house,  with  the  request  that  he  would  permit  him  to 
kiss  her  cheek.  '  Let  him  have  his  way,  Katia,'  said  the 
pilot,  '  the  linen  is  of  the  finest,  and  will  make  }'ou  chemises 

^  Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  part  i.  p.  252. 

187 


i88  PETER  THE  GREAT 

better  than  you  ever  dreamt  of  weariiii:;  in  your  youth.' 
Just  at  that  nioincut  the  Uutchman,  hearing  a  door  open 
behind  him,  turned  round,  and  ahnost  fainted.  A  man, 
evidently  an  important  j)er.sonaj:^e,  covered  with  cjold  em- 
broider}-, and  starred  with  decoration.s, stood  on  the  threshold, 
and  bowed  to  the  ground  as  he  replied  to  the  words  of 
welcome  addressed  to  him  by  Katia's  husband. 

1  am  half  afraid  this  story  is  not  true  ;  in  any  case,  it 
must  have  occurred  some  years  later  than  1703.  Catherine 
does  not  appear,  at  that  date,  to  have  taken  up  her  residence 
with  her  future  husband.  But;  otherwise,  there  is  an  air 
of  likelihood  about  it.  It  is  very  characteristic  of  Peter's 
general  behaviour,  and  of  his  most  intimate  surroundings. 
He  was  always  piloting  ships,  Dutch  or  others,  receiving  sea 
captains  at  his  own  table,  and  taking  them  in  by  the  extreme 
simj)]icit\'  of  his  manners  and  of  his  surroundings.  As  for 
the  cottage  on  the  river  bank,  it  may  still  be  seen  at  St 
Petersburg.  It  was  built  by  Dutch  workmen,  on  the  model 
of  those  seen  by  the  sovereign  at  Zaandam,  in  1697.  A 
framework  of  roughly  -  hewn  tree  trunks  supports  a  low 
roof,  on  which  the  gay,  red,  Dutch  tiles  are  replaced  by 
wooden  shingles.  It  contains  two  ground-floor  rooms,  of 
very  modest  proportions,  separated  by  a  narrow  passage, 
and  a-  kitchen,  with  a  garret  above.  There  are  only  seven 
windows.  The  exterior  is  painted  in  the  Dutch  style,  red 
and  green.  On  the  apex  of  the  roof,  and  at  its  two  corners, 
a  martial-looking  decoration  has  been  superadded — a  mortar 
and  lighted  shells,  all  carved  in  wood.  Within,  the  walls  are 
hung  with  white  canvass,  and  the  door  and  window-frames 
painted  with  bouquets  of  flowers.  The  room  on  the  right 
hand  side  was  used  as  a  working  and  a  reception  room. 
That  on  the  left  served  at  once  for  dining-room  and  bed- 
chamber.' 

This  latter  apartment  has  now  been  turned  into  a  chapel, 
where  the  faithful  pvdy,  and  burn  candles,  before  an  image  of 
our  Lord,  below  which  l^lizabeth  caused  the  first  words  of 
the  Lord's  Pra\er  to  be  inscribed.  I  have  never  seen  it 
otherwise  than  closely  crowded.  In  the  other  room  a  few 
souvenirs  have  been  collected — wooden  furniture  made  by 
the  great  man's  own  hands,  and  "done  up,"  alas  !  in  1850  ;  a 

'  Boulh.ikovski,  Pf/er's  House  (9>t.  Peteisbvirp,  1891).    Roubane,  Topograpkical 
Dtscription  of  St,  Peteishuro  (St.  Petersburg.  1799). 


PRIVATE  LIFE  i8g 

cupboard,  two  chests  of  drawers,  a  table,  a  bench  on  which 
he  often  sat  outside  his  door  to  breathe  the  fresh  air,  and 
watch  his  standard  floating  over  the  ramparts  of  the  Fetro- 
pavloskaia  KrUpost\  utensils,  and  tools,  which  he  once 
used. 

This  cottage,  small  and  far  from  luxurious  as  it  was,  hardly 
measuring  more  than  18  yards  by  6,  was  very  dear  to  its 
master.  He  regretted  it  deeply,  when  he  felt  his  duty  was 
to  leave  it  for  a  palace,  itself  a  very  modest  one.  Though 
he  loved  to  build  towns,  he  had  little  taste  for  dwell- 
ing in  them.  In  1708,  he  began  to  look  about  for  a  more 
rural  residence,  in  the  far  from  attractive  neighbourhood  of 
his  chosen  capital.  His  first  choice  fell  on  a  retired  spot  on 
the  banks  of  a  cool  and  rapidly-running  stream,  the  Strielka. 
Here,  in  one  season,  and  not  unfrequently  putting  his  own 
hand  to  the  work,  he  built  himself  a  rather  more  comfortable 
dwelling,  with  two  living-rooms  and  eight  bed-chambers. 
Catherine  was  with  him  by  this  time,  and  children  were 
beginning  to  come.  No  trace  of  this  house  remains  ;  but  we 
are  still  shown  a  huge  lime  tree,  in  the  branches  of  which  an 
arbour  was  built,  reached  by  a  staircase.  Here  Peter  often 
sat  smoking,  and  drinking  tea  out  of  Dutch  cups,  to  the 
hissing  of  a  samovar,  also  brought  from  Holland — for  this 
utensil,  now  become  so  thoroughly  national,  and  known  all 
over  Europe  under  its  picturesque  Russian  name,  came,  like 
everything  else,  from  Holland.^  The  only  change  made  in 
its  constitution  by  the  Russians  was  the  substitution  of 
charcoal,  a  far  cheaper  mode  of  heating,  for  the  original 
system  of  burning  spirits  of  wine.  Close  by  the  lime  tree, 
there  are  some  majestic  oaks,  known  as  the  Tsar's  nurselings 
{Pieirovskiie  Piiojii/sy).  He  planted  them  himself  He 
also  grew,  from  seed  gathered  b}-  his  own  hands  in  the 
Hartz  Mountains,  the  fir  trees  which  stand  at  a  little  dis- 
tance, and  shade  the  approaches  to  the  castle.  For  a  castle 
there  w.is,  at  last,  in  this  hermitage  at  Strielna.  When 
Catherine  became  an  empress,  the  demands  of  her  new 
r.uik  had,  perforce,  to  be  considered,  and  accommodati'  n 
found  for  her  Court.  But  Peter  soon  took  a  sudden  dislike 
to  this  country  residence.  It  had  grown  too  closely  in- 
habited, and  too  noisy  for  his  taste.  He  rid  himself  of  it, 
bestowing  it  on  his  daughter,   the    Grand    Duchess   Anne, 

^  The  meaning  of  the  Russian  word  samovar  is  '  that  which  boils  ol  itself.' 


190  PETER  THE  GREAT 

in  1702,  and  departed  to  Peterhof.^  Alas!  the  Imperial 
Court  and  Courtiers  pur-^ucd  him,  and  a  yet  more  sumptu- 
ous palace,  with  a  park  in  the  French  style,  and  fountains, 
copied  on  those  of  Versailles,  soon  rose  at  Peterhof  Peter 
refused,  at  all  events,  to  live  in  it  himself.  He  had  his 
Dutch  house,  which  even  now  bears  that  name,  close  by, 
Thouf^^h  a  very  modest  residence,  it  betrayed  a  certain 
amount  of  Flemish  luxury,  which  removed  it  very  far  from 
the  roucjhness  of  his  earliest  homes.  The  walls  of  the  bed- 
room, a  very  small  one,  were  covered  with  well-varnished 
white  tiles,  the  floor  with  a  flowered  waxcloth,  and  the 
chimnex^piece  was  adorned  with  the  most  magnificent  speci- 
mens of  Delft  china.  As  Peter  lay  in  bed,  he  could  see 
Kronsloot,  and  count  the  vessels  in  his  fleet.  A  few  steps 
brought  him  to  a  little  harbour,  whence  he  could  go  by 
boat,  down  a  canal,  to  the  mouth  of  the  Neva. 

The  number  of  the  Tsar's  country  houses  constantK'  in- 
creased, in  consequence  of  his  nomadic  habits.  He  had  one,  a 
wooden  building,  like  all  the  others,  at  Tsarkoie-Sielo.  This 
contained  six  rooms,  which  he  occasionally  shared  with 
Catherine.  According  to  a  somewhat  doubtful  legend,  the 
name  of  this  locality,  since  so  celebrated,  is  derived  from 
that  of  a  lady  called  Sarri,  to  whose  house  Peter  would 
occasionally  come,  and  drink  a  draught  of  milk.  The  P^innish 
name  of  the  place,  Saari-viojs,  meaning  '  high '  or  '  raised ' 
village,  would  seem  a  more  probable  derivation.  The  Tsar 
possessed  a  little  wooden  hou.se  at  Revel,  before  he  built  the 
ugly  and  heavy- looking  palace  which  was  erected  towards 
the  close  of  his  reign.  He  always  kept  clear  of  palaces,  as 
far  as  he  found  that  possible.  The  Revel  cottage,  which  has 
been  preserved,  contains  a  bedroom,  a  bathroom  [bania),  a 
dining-room,  and  a  kitchen.  In  the  sleeping-chamber  there 
is  a  double  bed  of  somewhat  narrow  proportions,  with  a  .sort 
of  platform  at  the  foot,  on  which  the  three  dietishtchiks 
(orderlies),  charged  with  watching  over  their  master  and 
mistress's  slumbers,  were  permitted  to  stretch  themselves. 


II 
Peter  was  never  a  great  sleeper ;  he  was  generally  up  by 

^  Pylaief,  'I'hc  For<^otten  Past  of  the  Neighbourhood  of  St.  Petersburg  (Si.  Pelers- 
butg,  1889),  p.  210. 


PRIVATE  LIFE  191 

five  o'clock,  and  even  an  hour  or  two  before,  if  he  had 
pressing  business — a  secret  council  to  hold,  a  courier  to  send 
off  in  a  hurry,  or  a  departing  ambassador,  who  needed  extra 
instructions.  When  the  Tsar  left  his  bed,  he  would  walk 
about  his  room  for  half  an  hour,  wearing  a  short  dressing- 
gown,  which  exposed  his  bare  legs,  and  a  white  cotton  night- 
cap trimmed  with  green  ribbons.  This,  no  doubt,  was  his 
moment  for  ruminating  over,  and  preparing,  the  day's  work. 
When  he  was  ready,  his  secretary,  Makarof,  appeared,  and 
read  him  the  daily  reports  of  the  different  heads  of  depart- 
ments. Then  he  breakfasted  quickly,  but  heartily,  and  went 
out, — on  foot,  if  it  were  fine,  otherwise  in  a  very  modest 
cabriolet  with  one  horse.  He  went  to  the  naval  dockyards, 
inspected  the  ships  in  course  of  construction,  and  invariably 
wound  up  by  a  visit  to  the  Admiralty.  Here,  he  would 
swallow  a  glass  of  brandy,  and  lunch  off  a  biscuit,  and  then 
work  on  till  one  o'clock,  when  he  dined.  The  kitchen  of 
the  little  palace,  which  now  stands  in  the  Summer  Garden 
at  St.  Petersburg,  is  next  the  dining-room,  with  a  hatch 
through  which  the  dishes  were  passed.  Peter  never  could 
endure  the  presence  of  numerous  servants  during  a  meal. 
And  this  peculiarity  was  exceedingl}'  Dutch.  When  he 
dined  alone  with  his  wife,  as  was  his  usual  habit,  they  were 
waited  upon  by  a  single  page,  chosen  from  amongst  the 
youngest  in  his  service,  and  the  Empress's  most  confidential 
waiting-woman.  If  the  party  was  increased  by  the  presence 
of  a  few  guests,  the  chief  cook,  Velten,  assisted  by  one  or 
two  dienshtcJiiks,  handed  the  dishes.  Once  dessert  was  on 
the  table,  and  a  bottle  placed  before  each  guest,  all  the 
servants  were  ordered  to  withdraw.^ 

These  dinners  were  quite  unceremonious ;  no  others  were 
ever  given  in  the  Tsar's  house.  All  State  dinners  were 
given  in  Menshikof's  Palace,  and  he  it  was  who  presided 
over  the  sumptuous  repasts,  consisting  of  as  many  as  200 
courses,  cooked  by  French  cooks,  and  served  on  quantities 
of  gold  plate  and  priceless  china.  There  were  two  dining- 
rooms  in  the  great  Summer  Palace,  one  on  the  ground  floor, 
and  another  on  the  first,  each  with  its  own  kitchen  beside  it. 
Peter  found  time,  in  17 14,  to  give  his  most  minute  attention 
to  the  arrangement  of  these  kitchens.  He  insisted  on  their 
being  comparatively  spacious,  with  tiled  walls,  so,  he  said, 
'  Siachlin,  p.  109.     ISartof,  p.  53. 


192  PETER  THE  GREAT 

that  the  Ihiriatka  (mistress  of  the  house)  might  be  able  to 
look  after  the  oven  comfortabl\-,  and  even  occasionally  pre- 
pare dishes  of  her  own.^  Catherine,  though  no  cordon  bleu — 
she  was  supposed  to  have  given  most  of  her  attention  to  the 
washing',  in  her  former  master's  household — was  not  without 
culinary  talents. 

Peter  himself  was  a  verj-  large  cater.  At  Berlin,  in  October 
1 7 12,  we  find  him  supping  with  the  Prince  Royal,  after  having 
already  supped  with  his  own  cliancellor,  Golovkin,  and  eat- 
ing, at  both  tables,  with  the  heartiest  appetite.  Manteufifel, 
the  King  of  Poland's  minister,  in  the  description  of  the 
second  of  these  repasts,  gives  great  praise  to  the  Tsar,  who, 
he  declares,  '  behaved  himself  with  perfect  decorum,  so  far 
at  all  events,  as  I  could  see  or  hear.'  And  before  offering 
his  hand  to  the  Queen,  he  even  put  on  '  a  rather  dirty 
glove.'  ^ 

The  Tsar  carried  his  knife  and  spoon  and  fork  about  with 
him.  1  he  spoon  was  made  of  wood  mounted  in  ivory.  The 
knife  and  fork  were  iron,  with  green  bone  handles.  He  liked 
the  simple  dishes  of  his  country,  such  as  shtchi  and  kasha,  pre- 
ferred black  bread,  and  never  ate  sweet  things  nor  fish,  which 
always  disagreed  with  him.  On  special  Fast  days,  he  lived 
on  fruit  and  farinaceous  foods.  During  the  three  last  years 
of  his  life,  he  would,  from  time  to  time,  in  obedience  to  his 
doctor's  entreaties,  give  up  the  use,  or  at  all  events  the  abuse, 
of  wine.  Hence  that  reputation  for  sobriety  ascribed  to  him 
by  certain  travellers,  who  visited  Russia  at  that  period, 
— amongst  others  by  Lang,  who  accompanied  the  sovereign 
during  his  Persian  Campaign.  On  these  occasions,  he  drank 
kislyU-shtchi  {s,owx  kvass)  flavoured  with  English  small  beer,-* 
but  was  never  able  to  resist  the  temptation  of  indulging  in  a 
few  glasses  of  brandy.  But  indeed  these  fits  of  abstinence 
never  lasted  long.  He  soon  went  back  to  his  old  habits, 
save  that  he  avoided  any  mixture  of  alcoholic  beverages, 
and  restricted  himself  to  drinking  Medoc  and  Cahors.  At 
the  very  end,  by  the  advice  of  a  Scotch  doctor,  Erskine, 
who  treated  him   for  diarrhoea,  he  drank  Hermiiagc.  ■* 

The  Tsar's  stable  arrangements  were  simple.     The  palace 

1  r.nlikof,  vol.  V.  p.  S70  (note). 

^  Letter  to  Count  I'l-. niniing,  .Sbornik,  vol.  xx.  p.  59. 

•  This  would  appear  to  be  a  probable  translation  of  '  baume  d'Angletcrre.' 

*  btaehlin,  p.  272,  etc. 


PRIVATE  LIFE  193 

coach-houses  only  contained  two  coaches,  with  four  places 
in  each,  for  the  use  of  the  Empress,  and  the  Emperor's 
cabriolet,  with  which  we  have  already  made  acquaintance. 
Nothing  more.  This  cabriolet  was  painted  red,  and  hung 
very  low.  It  was  replaced,  in  winter,  by  a  small  sledge. 
Peter  never  got  into  a  coach,  unless  he  was  called  upon  to 
do  honour  to  some  distinguished  guest,  and  then  he  always 
made  use  of  Menshikof's  carriages.  These  were  magnificent. 
Even  when  the  favourite  went  out  alone,  he  drove  in  a  gilded 
fan-shaped  coach,  drawn  by  six  horses,  in  crimson  velvet 
trappings,  with  gold  and  silver  ornaments  ;  his  arms  crowned 
with  a  prince's  coronet,  adorned  the  panels  ;  lacqueys  and 
running  footmen  in  rich  liveries  ran  before  it ;  pages  and 
musicians,  dressed  in  velvet,  and  covered  with  gold  em- 
broideries, followed  it.  Six  gentlemen  attended  it  at  each 
door,  and  an  escort  of  dragoons  completed  the  procession.^ 

Peter  never  indulged  in  luxury  of  this  kind.  When  he 
was  not  in  uniform,  his  dress  was  not  unlike  that  of  one 
of  his  own  peasants.  In  summer  he  wore  a  kaftan,  made  of 
stout  dark-coloured  cloth,  manufactured  by  Serdioukof,  one 
of  \\\s  proteges,  a  silk  waistcoat,  woollen  stockings, — generally, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  full  of  darns, — heavy,  thick-soled 
shoes,  with  very  high  heels,  and  steel  or  copper  buckles. 
His  head-covering  was  a  three-cornered  felt  hat,  or  a  velvet 
cap.  In  winter  the  velvet  cap  was  replaced  by  one  made  of 
sheep-skin,  and  the  shoes  by  soft  deer-skin  boots,  with  the  hair 
turned  outwards.  A  fur  lining, — sable  in  front,  and  squirrel 
for  the  back  and  sleeves, — was  put  into  his  kaftan.  His 
uniform,  which  he  never  wore  except  on  active  service,  was 
that  of  Colonel  of  tiie  Preobrajenski  regiment  of  the  Guard. 
The  coat  was  of  rather  coarse  dark  green  Dutch  cloth, 
lined  with  silk  of  the  same  colour  (now  faded  to  a  blue 
shade),  edged  with  narrow  gold  braid,  and  with  large  copper 
buttons  ;  with  it  a  thick  doe-skin  waistcoat  was  worn.  The 
hat  had  no  lace  on  it,  the  sword  had  an  ungilt  copper  guard, 
and  black  sheath,  and  the  stock  was  of  plain  black  leather. 
\'et  Peter  loved  fine  and  well-bleached  linen,  such  as  was 
then  made  in  Holland,  and  this  was  the  only  point  on  which 
he  could  be  induced  to  compromise  with  the  deliberate  and 
determined  simplicity  of  his  life, — a  simplicity  which,  I  am 
disposed  to  believe,  was  inspired  by  a  very  conscientious 
1  Tylaief,  p.  379. 


T94  PETER  THE  GREAT 

feelings  for  economy.  When  Catherine  showed  him  the 
splendid  coronation  dress  to  which  I  have  referred  on  a 
previous  pajije,  his  first  expression  was  one  of  extreme 
annoyance.  He  laid  an  angry  hand  on  the  silvery  em- 
broidery and  shook  it  so  violently,  that  several  of  the 
spangles  fell  to  the  ground.  '  Look  at  that,  Katinka,'  he 
said,  '  tho.se  will  all  be  swept  away,  and  they  would  nearly 
make  up  the  pay  of  one  of  my  grenadiers.'  ^ 

lie  never  acquired  the  Dutch  taste  for  cleanliness  and 
domestic  order.  At  Ikrlin,  in  171 8,  the  Queen  caused  all 
the  furniture  to  be  removed  from  the  hou.se  (Mon  liijou) 
intended  for  him,  and  her  precaution  seems  to  have  been 
a  wise  one.  He  left  it  in  such  a  condition  that  it 
almost  had  to  be  rebuilt.  '  The  desolation  of  Jerusalem 
reigned  within  it,'  says  the  Margravine  of  Baireuth.  In  one 
detail  only  did  an  instinctive  repugnance  clash  with  the 
sordid  habits  which  Oriental  associations  had  perpetuated 
in  Russian  domestic  life.  He  had  a  horror  of  certain 
parasites,  which  then,  as  now,  alas !  too  often  swarmed  in 
Muscovite  dwellings.  The  sight  of  a  cockroach  almost 
made  him  faint.  One  day  an  officer,  with  whom  he  had 
invited  himself  to  dinner,  showed  him  one,  which,  thinking 
to  give  his  guest  pleasure,  he  had  nailed  to  the  wall  in  a 
conspicuous  spot.  Peter  rose  from  the  table,  fell  on  the 
unlucky  wight,  gave  him  a  sound  thrashing  with  his  doitbina, 
and  made  for  the  door. 

ill 

His  pleasures  were  like  his  tastes,  not  over  remarkable  for 
elegance.  Unlike  his  ancestors, — all  of  them  great  slayers 
of  bears  and  wolves,  and  passionate  devotees  of  the  art  of 
falconry, — he  cared  nothing  for  sport.  That  imitation  of 
war  gave  offence  to  his  practical  mind  ;  not  that  he  cared 
for  real  war,  he  only  resigned  himself  to  it  for  the  sake  of 
the  profit  he  hoped  it  might  bring  him.  Once,  indeed,  and 
once  only,  early  in  his  reign,  he  was  induced  to  go  out 
coursing,  but  first  he  made  his  own  conditions.  No  hunts- 
man or  whipper-in  was  to  put  in  an  appearance.  His  con- 
ditions were  accepted,  and  he  thus  played  his  friends  a  .sorry 
trick,  and  gave  himself  the  satisfaction  of  making  them  feel 

>  I'ylaief,  p.  379. 


PRIVATE  LIFE  195 

the  conventional  nature  of  their  sport.  The  hounds,  bereft  of 
huntsmen  and  vvhippers-in,  became  unmanageable,  dragged 
at  their  leashes,  and  pulled  the  riders  from  their  saddles,  so 
that  the  next  moment  half  the  company  was  lying  on  the 
ground,  and  the  hunt  came  to  an  end,  amidst  a  scene  of 
general  confusion.  The  next  day  it  was  Peter  who  suggested 
another  coursing  party,  and  the  sportsmen,  most  of  them 
sorely  knocked  about,  and  some,  indeed,  obliged  to  stay  in 
bed,  who  demurred  to  his  proposition.^ 

He  hated  cards,  which  he  called  a  game  for  cheats.  His 
military  and  naval  officers  were  forbidden,  under  the  severest 
penalties,  to  lose  more  than  one  rouble  in  an  evening.  Some- 
times, to  please  the  foreign  sailors,  whom  he  entertained,  he 
would  take  part  in  a  game  of  Dutch  gravias.  He  was  fond 
of  chess,  and  played  it  well.  He  both  smoked  and  snuffed. 
At  Koppenbrligge,  in  1697,  he  exchanged  snuff-boxes  with 
the  Electress  of  Brandenburg.  His  chief  pleasure  —  his 
master-passion,  in  fact — was  boating  in  all  its  branches.  At 
St  Petersburg,  when  the  Neva  was  three-parts  frozen,  even 
when  the  clear  space  of  water  did  not  measure  a  hundred 
feet  square,  he  would  go  upon  it  in  any  boat  he  could  lay 
his  hands  on.  Often,  in  mid-winter,  he  would  have  a  narrow 
passage  cut  in  the  ice,  and  there  indulge  in  his  favourite 
sport.-  Arriving  in  his  capital  in  1706,  he  found  the  streets 
flooded,  and  two  feet  of  water  in  his  private  rooms.  He 
clapped  his  hands  like  a  child.^  He  was  never  really  happy 
except  on  board  a  ship.  Nothing  but  serious  illness  could 
keep  him  on  shore,  if  he  was  near  any  port ;  and,  indeed,  he 
averred  that,  in  case  of  illness,  he  was  better  if  he  went  to 
sea.  At  Riga,  in  1723,  in  the  midst  of  a  violent  attack  of 
tertian  fever,  which  had  already  driven  him  on  shore,  he  had 
his  bed  carried  on  board  a  frigate,  fought  through  the  illness, 
and  always  attributed  his  recovery  to  this  expedient.  To- 
wards the  end  of  his  \\{q,  even  for  his  after-dinner  siesta, 
he  stretched  himself  out  in  the  bottom  of  a  boat,  which  was 
generally  provided  for  the  purpose. 

All  the  inhabitants  of  St  Petersburg,  either  following  his 
example,  or  by  his  care,  possessed  means  of  aquatic  locomo- 
tion. All  his  chief  officials  were  given  a  yacht,  and  two 
boats,  one  of  twelve  and  another  of  four  oars.    Other  officials 

^  Ciolikof,  vol.  i.  p.  28.  -  PyLiicf,  p..  379. 

^  Russian  .Vichives,  1875,  ^'"'-  "•  P-  47 


196  PETER  THE  GREAT 

were  more  modestly  provided,  according  to  their  tchin.  The 
regulations  for  the  use  of  these  boats  were  written  out  b}'  his 
own  hand.  On  certain  fixed  days,  when  the  Tsar's  standard 
had  been  hoisted  at  the  four  corners  of  the  city,  the  whole 
flotilla  was  expected,  on  pain  of  a  heavy  penalt\',  to  collect 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  fortress.  At  the  signal  given 
by  a  salvo  of  artillery.  Admiral  Apraxin  led  the  way  on  his 
yacht  dressed  with  red  and  white  flags.  The  Tsar's  boat 
followed — Peter,  in  his  white  sailor's  dress,  and  generally 
accompanied  by  Catherine,  holding  the  rudder.  Some  of  the 
boats,  which  were  richh'  decorated,  had  musicians  on  board. 
Thus  the  procession  took  its  way  to  Strielna,  to  Peterhof, 
or  to  Oranienbaum,  where  a  banquet  awaited  the  party. ^ 

Peter,  like  Catherine  II.,  in  later  days,  was  a  great  lover 
of  animals,  especially  of  dogs.  In  1708,  a  poor  country 
priest,  of  the  name  of  Kozlovski,  was  put  to  the  torture  at 
the  Prtobrajoiski  Prikaz^  for  having  spoken  improperly  of 
the  Tsar's  person.  He  had  been  heard  to  say  that  he 
had  seen  the  Sovereign  at  Moscow  in  the  act  of  kissing 
a  bitch.'-  There  was  no  doubt  about  the  fact.  The  un- 
lucky priest  had  happened  to  pass  down  the  street  just  at 
the  moment  when  the  Tsar's  favourite  dog,  Finette,  had 
bounded  into  her  master's  carriage,  and  was  rubbing  her 
muzzle  against  his  moustaches  without  any  resistance  on  his 
part.  P"inette,  called  Lisette  by  some  contemporaries,  who 
have  confused  her,  doubtless,  with  a  very  favourite  mare, 
competed  for  the  Tsar's  favour  with  a  great  Danish  dog, 
whose  stuffed  body  now  has  its  place  amongst  the  souvenirs 
so  piously  preserved  in  the  gallery  of  the  Winter  Palace. 
This  honour  is  shared  by  the  mare,  a  present  from  the  Shah 
of  Persia — a  small  animal,  but  with  muscles  of  steel.  I'eter 
rode  her  at  Poltava.  There  is  a  story  that  Finette  once 
played  a  part  in  politics.  An  edict  had  been  published,  for- 
bidding the  presentation  of  petitions  to  the  Tsar,  on  pain  of 
death.  The  friends  of  an  official  who  had  been  sentenced 
to  the  knout  for  some  breach  of  trust,  fastened  an  ingeniously 
drawn-up  appeal  to  the  Sovereign's  clemency,  to  the  pretty 
creature's  collar.  Their  stratagem  was  crowned  with  succe-s, 
and  their  example  largely  followed.  But  Peter  speedily 
discouraged  all  imitators.^ 

'  Pylaief,  p.  2io.  ■^  Documents  of  the  rreoLrajenskoie  Secret  Chancery. 

*  Scherer,  vol.  iii.  p.  294. 


PRIVATE  LIFE  197 


IV 


The  great  man  often  sought  his  pleasures  and  relaxations 
in  very  inferior  company.  It  must  be  admitted  that  his 
acquaintance  with  good  society  was  but  limited.  The  Mar- 
gravine of  Baireuth  was  a  terrible  gossip,  and  owned  the 
worst  tongue,  perhaps,  that  ever  wagged  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  Yet  there  must  be  a  certain  amount  of  truth  in 
her  rather  amusing  story  of  her  meeting  with  the  Tsar  during 
that  sovereign's  stay  at  Berlin  in  17 18.  Peter  had  already 
met  her  five  j^ears  previously.  The  moment  he  recognised 
her,  he  rushed  at  her,  seized  her  in  his  arms,  and  scratched 
her  face  with  his  rough  kisses.  She  struggled,  slapped  him 
in  the  face,  but  still  he  held  her  tight;  she  complained,  was 
told  she  would  have  to  make  up  her  mind  to  it,  and  so  sub- 
mitted. But  she  took  her  revenge  by  jeering  at  the  brutal 
monarch's  wife  and  suite.  '  She  had  with  her  400  so-called 
ladies.  Most  of  these  were  German  servant  girls,  who  per- 
formed the  duties  of  ladies-in-waiting,  serving-women,  cooks 
and  laundresses.  Almost  everyone  of  these  creatures  carried 
a  t;ichly-dressed  child  in  her  arms,  and  if  any  one  enquired 
to  whom  the  children  belonged,  they  answered,  with  all  sorts 
of  Russian  salaams,  "  The  Tsar  has  done  me  the  honour  of 
making  me  the  mother  of  this  child.'" 

The  habits  and  the  friendships  contracted  by  Peter  in  the 
German  suburb,  superior  as  they  were  to  the  social  level  of 
old  Kussia,  were  not  calculated  to  fit  him  for  the  Courts  and 
elegant  circles  of  the  West.  And  with  these  old  associations 
he  never  broke.  When  he  was  in  Moscow,  in  1723,  he  spent 
his  evenings  between  an  old  friend  of  his,  the  wife  of  an 
official  named  Fadenbrecht,  to  whose  house  he  had  his 
meals  carried,  Bidlau,  a  doctor,  Gregori,  an  apothecary, 
Tamsen,  Konau  and  Meyer,  tradesmen,  and  a  certain  young 
lady  of  the  name  of  Ammon,  barely  sixteen  years  of  age,  in 
whose  house  dancing  went  on  till  five  o'clock  every  morning.^ 
And  even  this  is  a  somewhat  favourable  specimen. 

On  Easter  Day,  the  24th  of  March  1706,  Peter  causes  his 
letter  to  Menshikof  to  be  signed,  and  a  postscript  added  to 
it,  by  the  friends  gathered  round  him  to  celebrate  that 
solemn   day.       In   that   intimate  circle,    I    notice   a    private 

'  Bergholz,  Biisckings-Magazin,  vol.  .\xi.  p.  183. 


198  PETER  THE  GREAT 

soldier,  two  Dienshtchiks,  and  finally  a  peasant,  who,  not 
knowing  how  to  write,  replaces  his  signature  by  a  cross, 
affixed  to  an  intimation  that  he  had  been  given  leave  '  to  get 
drunk  for  three  whole  days.'^ 

Peter  never  slept  alone.  His  bed  was  generally  shared 
by  Catherine,  very  rarely  by  a  mistress.  He  sought  his  couch 
for  purposes  of  slumber.  He  was  sensual,  but  not  voluptuous, 
and  his  love  affairs,  like  all  his  other  affairs,  were  got 
through  as  quickly  as  possible.  1  have  already  (page  io6) 
explained  his  dislike  to  sleeping  alone,  and  in  the  absence 
of  his  wife,  he  would  avail  himself  of  the  company  of  the 
first  dicnslitchik  he  could  lay  his  hand  en.  I'his  individual 
had  orders  to  lie  exceedingly  quiet,  under  pain  of  being 
well  thrashed.  Peter  generally  woke  in  a  bad  temper.  In 
the  country,  when  the  hour  for  his  daily  siesta  came,  he 
made  one  of  these  dien^Jitchiks  lie  down  on  the  ground,  and 
used  his  stomach  for  a  pillow.  This  man  did  wisely,  unless 
his  digestion  was  an  exceptionally  quick  and  easy  one,  to  be 
in  a  fasting  condition,  for,  on  the  slightest  movement,  or 
sound,  the  Tsar  would  spring  to  his  feet  and  fall  upon  him.- 

All  this  notwithstanding,  he  was  really  exceedingly  in- 
dulgent and  easy-going,  in  all  matters  connected  with  his 
personal  service.  Nartof  has  given  us  the  story  of  the 
cupboards  invented  by  the  Tsar,  in  which  he  would  lock  up, 
beds  and  all,  certain  of  his  orderlies  who,  in  spite  of  his 
reiterated  orders  and  threats,  persisted  in  spending  their 
nights  in  houses  of  ill-fame.  He  kept  the  keys  under  his 
pillow,  and  used  to  get  up,  after  midnight,  to  inspect  these 
dormitory  cells.  One  night  he  found  them  all  empty.  His 
astonishment  and  rage  were  terrible.  '  So  the  rascals  have 
made  themselves  wings,'  he  cried,  '  I'll  cut  them  to-morrow 
with  my  doubina.'  But  when  morning  came,  and  the  culprits 
appeared  before  him,  he  contented  himself  with  promising 
them  a  better  watched  and  less  comfortable  prison,  if  they 
relapsed  into  misbehaviour.^  His  personal  service  was  per- 
formed by  six  dieushtc/iiks,  amongst  whose  names  we  notice 
those  of  Tatishtchef,  Orlof,  Boutourlin  and  Souvarof,  two 
couriers    to    go    distant    messages,    one    valet -de-chambre, 

1  Golikof,  vol.  iii.  p.  94.  ^  Schercr,  vol.  ii.  p.  81. 

*  Mevioirs,  p.  36.  The  personal  portion  of  Narlof's  recollections  deserves  a 
certain  amount  of  credence,  but  the  remainder  of  the  work  is  a  later  compilation, 
the  only  value  of  which,  and  thai  a  doubtful  one,  resides  in  the  various  anecdotic 
sources  from  which  it  has  been  drawn. 


PRIVATE  LIFE  199 

Polouboiarof,  one  secretary,  Makarof,  and  two  under- 
secretaries, Tcherkassof  and  Pamiatin.  Nartof  also  be- 
longed to  the  household,  in  his  quality  of  assistant  in  the 
Tsar's  ivory  and  wood-turning,  at  which  he  spent  several 
hours  a  day.  The  whole  household  formed  an  exception  to 
the  general  rule,  according  to  which  every  one  who  had  to 
do  with  the  sovereign,  whether  closely  or  not,  detested  as  much 
as  they  feared  him.  Peter  the  Great,  like  the  great  Catherine, 
was  always  adored  by  his  personal  servants. 

This  was  far  from  being  the  case  with  his  collaborators, 
who,  for  a  certain  period,  were  generally  his  favourites  as 
well.  With  the  exception  of  Menshikof,  none  of  them 
maintained  this  last  position  for  any  length  of  time.  Where 
they  were  concerned,  phases  of  condescension,  and  even  of 
extreme  partiality,  invariably  led  up  to  a  swift  veering  of 
the  Tsar's  humour,  and  a  terrible  change  of  fortune.  So 
long  as  things  went  well,  they  were  treated  like  spoilt 
children.  Peter's  care  for  their  health  and  comfort  was 
unflagging.  He  even  found  them  wives.  When  the 
calamities  which  overtook  the  Tsar's  unhappy  son,  brought 
one  of  the  myrmidons  of  the  law,  named  Alexander  Roumi- 
antsof,  who  had  been  employed  to  capture  him,  into  high 
favour,  a  Boyard  ofiered  him  his  daughter,  who  had  a  con- 
siderable dowry,  in  marriage.  Roumiantsof,  the  son  of  a  needy 
gentleman,  in  the  Government  of  Kostroma,  was  himself  a  poor 
rnan.  *  Hast  thou  seen  the  girl } '  asked  Peter.  *  No,  but  I 
hear  she  is  a  sensible  girl.'  '  That's  something,  but  I  want  to 
see  her.'  He  went  that  evening  to  a  gathering  at  which  he 
knew  the  young  girl  was  to  be  present,  had  her  pointed  out 
to  him  as  soon  as  he  arrived,  shrugged  his  shoulders,  said 
very  loud,  as  if  speaking  to  himself,  '  Nitchaiiou  nie  byvat !' 
(no  good  at  all)  turned  on  his  heel,  and  departed.  The  next 
day,  meeting  Roumiantsof,  he  repeated  '  Nilchdinou  nie  by- 
vat ! '  adding,  '  I  will  find  thee  something  better,  and  that 
by  this  evening.  Be  here  at  five  o'clock.'  Roumiantsof 
naturally  kept  the  appointment,  and,  at  Peter's  order,  seated 
himself  in  his  cabriolet.  He  was  more  than  astonished 
when  he  saw  the  carriage  stop  before  the  house  of  Count 
Matvicief,  one  of  the  noblest  and  richest  subjects  of  the 
Tsar.  Entering,  Peter  addressed  the  Count  familiarly,  kissed 
him,  and  said  point  blank,  '  You  have  a  daughter  whom  you 
want  to  marry.  Here  is  a  husband.'  Without  further  pre- 
14 


200  PETER  THF  GREAT 

liminary,  Matvit'icf'.s  daiii^litor  became  Roumiantsofs  wife. 
Accordini:;  to  certain  accounts,  she  had  alread)-,  at  the  af]je  of 
nineteen,  been  the  mistress,  and  the  fickle  mistress,  of  her 
sovereign.  Peter,  who  had  lately  surprised  her  in  circum- 
stances which  left  no  doubt  of  this  unfaithfulness,  is  sup- 
posed to  have  selected  this  means  of  guardini^  her  fragile 
virtue,  having  previously,  with  his  own  hands,  administered 
healthy  correction  to  the  fair  lady.^ 

Rut  the  following  chapters  will  give  my  readers  fuller 
information  as  to  the  most  certain  and  probable  facts  con- 
cerning this  obscure  corner  in  the  Tsar's  personal  history. 

^  Pylaief,  Old  Moscow,  p.  52. 


BOOK   II— THE  TSAR'S  ASSOCIATES 
CHAPTER    I 

COLLABORATORS,   FRIENDS   AND   FAVOURITES 

I.  The  Aristocracy  and  the  Popular  Element — The  Dieiatiels — The  great 
Favourites— Komodanovski— The  Prince  C(Bsar—'Y\\^  Secret  Police — The 
Red  Square  at  Moscow  —Old  Russia— A  bear  as  house  steward — Loyalty, 
energy,  and  ferocity— Oriental  suppleness — Sheremetief — A  poor  leader 
and  a  fine  soldier— Menshikof— The  pastry  cook's  boy— The  Tsar's 
minion — Peter's  inditTerence  to  scandal  on  some  subjects — Alexashka — a 
Prince— Profusion  of  titles  and  functions — Omnipotence — Abuse  of  power 
— A  military  leader — An  administrator — Faults  and  virtues — An  apology 
for  theft — Peter's  indulgence  worn  out — Semi-disgrace. 

II.  Collaborators  of  the  second  rank— Golovin — An  Admiral  who_  was  no 
sailor,  and  a  Foreign  Minister  who  was  no  diplomat — Russian  sailors  and 
foreign  sailors— Apraxin  and  Cruys — Politicians  and  police  agents — 
Golovkin — Tolstoi— A  high-born  Russian  Diplomat  of  the  new  school — 
Boris  Kourakin— Some  great  Dieiatiels — Neplouief  and  Tatishtchef — 
The  Tsar's  Confessor,  Nadajinski — A  match  witn  the  Abbe  Dubois' 
secretary. 
III.  The  Agents  of  a  lower  order — lagoujinski  and  Shafirof — Polish  Jews — The 
\'iesselovski— The  Pyybyhhtchiks—Y.owxhiL'i.Qi  and  Solovief— Possoshkof, 
the  first  Rus-ian  Economist— The  fortunes  of  the  Demidofs — Lomonossof. 

IV.  Foreign  Collaborators — They  often  did  the  work,  but  remained  in  the 
shadow — Sheremetief  and  Ogilvy—Vinnius— James  Bruce— Ostermann— 
Devier,  a  Portuguese  Jew — The  invariable  close  of  brilliant  careers — The 
final  crash— Frenchm"en—De  Yillebois— A  scene  in  the  Imperial  bed- 
room— Englishmen — Perry  and  Fergusson — Poushkins's  negro  ancestor, 
Abraham  Hannibal. 

V.  General  summing  up — Peter  and  Leibnitz— The  great  German's  posthumous 
roU. 


'Alone,  or  almost  alone,  our  Tsar  struggles  to  raise  the 
country,  millions  of  individual  efforts  drag  it  down.' 

When  Possoshkof  thus  picturesquely  described  Peter's 
isolation,  and  the  difficulties  he  met  with,  in  carrying  out 
his    reforms,   he    indulged    in    a   slight   exaggeration.     The 


202  PETER  THE  GREAT 

very  accession  of  the  great  reformer  was,  as  I  have  already 
shewn,  tlic  result  of  a  party  triLimph.  His  first  revolu- 
tionary attempts  were  inspired  by  those  about  him,  and 
he  certainly  would  never  have  been  able  to  compress  the 
work  of  several  centuries  into  twenty  years,  unless  he  had 
been  assisted  by  a  very  considerable  amount  of  extraneous 
energy  and  intelligence.  The  country  which  he  ruled  so 
proudly,  and  which  indeed  he  watered  with  the  sweat  of 
his  own  brow,  yielded  a  fruitful  harvest  of  effort  and 
capability,  rough-hewn,  no  doubt,  but  not  the  less  gallant 
for  that.  On  the  heels  of  the  earliest  workers — Lefort  and 
the  Naryshkin — came  others,  native  or  foreign,  none  of 
them  indeed  great  leaders,  nor  very  profound  politicians, 
but  men  of  action  like  Peter  himself,  like  him  hastily  and 
superficially  educated,  yet  possessing  a  remarkable  and 
varied  power  of  initiative,  of  endeavour,  and  of  resource. 
When  the  old  aristocracy  failed  him,  and  this  soon  came 
to  pass  (the  old  nobility,  alarmed  by  the  boldness  of  his 
measures,  outraged  by  the  roughness  of  his  manners,  and 
bewildered  by  the  giddy  rapidity  of  his  movements,  soon 
began  to  hang  back  and  even  steal  awa}-),  he  went  below 
it,  down  even  into  the  lowest  strata  of  the  populace,  and 
thence  took  a  Demidof  and  a  lagoujinksi,  to  replace  a 
Matvitl'ief,  or  a  Troubetzkoi.  Thus  a  school  of  statesmen 
rose  around  him,  men  of  peculiar  stamp,  the  prototypes  of 
the  DiHaticls  (agents)  of  a  later  date  ;  soldiers,  diplomatists, 
or  political  economists,  turn  about,  with  no  defined  speciality 
(a  trifle  amateurish  in  that  matter),  who  knew  neither  pre- 
judice nor  scruple,  without  fear,  if  not  without  reproach,  who 
marched  straight  forward,  without  a  backward  glance,  always 
ready  for  strong  measures,  wonderfully  fitted  for  the  rapid 
performance  of  every  kind  of  duty,  and  for  the  bold  assump- 
tion of  any  and  every  responsibilit}-.  They  answered  Peter's 
purpose,  and  the  purpose  of  the  work  which  they  were  to  do 
with  him.  He  did  not,  and  in  that  he  was  right,  expect 
them  to  be  paragons  of  virtue.  In  1722,  Camprcdon  writes 
to  Cardinal  Dubois, — '  I  have  the  honour  of  pointing  out  to 
your  Eminence,  that  unless,  with  my  diplomatic  powers,  I 
am  provided  with  means  of  giving  money  to  the  Russian 
ministers,  no  success  can  be  expected,  however  advantageous 
an  alliance  with  1-^rance  may  appear  to  the  Tsar  ;  for,  if  his 
minislc.s  do  not  perceive  their  own   per.sonal   benefit  in   it, 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES     203 

their  intrigues  and  secret  enmities  will  foil  any  negotiations, 
even  those  which  might  be  of  most  service,  and  bring  most 
credit  to  their  master.  I  notice  proofs  of  this  truth  every 
day  of  my  life.'  ^  The  ministers  here  referred  to  were  Bruce 
and  Ostermann,  and  the  proofs,  very  solid  ones,  perhaps, 
of  which  the  French  Envoy  boasts,  had  not  prevented  them 
in  the  preceding  year,  at  Nystadt,  from  outstripping  Peter 
himself  in  the  defence  of  his  interests,  and  obtaining  condi- 
tions of  peace  which  he  had  not  dared  to  hope  for. 

Three  men,  Romodanovski,  Shercmetief,  and  Menshikof, 
tower  above  all  others  in  the  great  monarch's  personal  circle. 
The  two  first  were  the  only  human  beings  to  enjoy  a  privi- 
lege denied  to  Catherine  herself,  that  of  being  received  by  the 
sovereign,  unannounced,  whenever  they  chose  to  appear  in 
his  presence.  When  he  dismissed  them,  he  always  con- 
ducted them  himself  to  the  door  of  his  cabinet. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  none  of  the 
princely  families  descended  from  Rourik  equalled  the  Romo. 
danovski  in  rank  and  influence.  Yet  only  a  century  before, 
this  family  held  quite  a  secondary  position,  inferior  to  that 
of  the  Tcherkaski,  Troubetzkoi,  Galitzin,  Repnin,  Ourussof, 
Shercmetief,  and  Saltikof,  equal  to  that  of  the  Kourakin, 
Dolgorouki,  Volkonski,  and  Lobanof  families.'^  A  younger 
branch  of  one  of  the  younger  branches  of  the  great  Norman 
house,  that  of  the  Princes  of  Starodoub,  it  took  its  name, 
somewhere  in  the  fifteenth  century,  from  a  property  called 
Romodanof  in  the  Government  of  Vladimir.  The  prominent 
rank  it  subsequently  held,  was  attained  in  virtue  of  a  kind  of 
hereditary  function,  which  in  itself  would  hardly  be  looked 
on  as  a  claim  to  much  distinction.  When  the  Tsar  Alexis 
established  an  office  of  the  secret  police  at  Preobrajenskoie, 
with  subterranean  dungeons  and  question  chambers,  all  com- 
plete, its  management  was  confided  to  Prince  George  (or 
louri)  Ivanovitch  Romodanovski.  After  his  death,  his  son 
inherited  the  post,  and  finally  transmitted  it  to  his  own  heir. 
The  son  of  George  Ivanovilch  was  the  Prince  Casar,  with 
w  horn  we  have  already  made  acquaintance.  It  was,  it  seems, 
ill  1694,  and  as  a  reward  for  a  victory  gained  by  him  over 
the  mock  King  of  Poland,  represented  by  Boutourlin,  that 
Peter  took  it  into  his  head  to  dress  Romodanovski  up   in 

^  July  24,  1722  (Paris  Foreign  Office). 

'■^  Kolochihin,  Memoirs  (St.  Petersburg,  1884),  p.  25,  etc. 


204  PETER  THE  GREAT 

this  strange  title.  It  was  a  mere  joke,  but  we  know  how 
whimsically  the  great  man  would  mint^lc  pleasantry  with 
serious  matters.  It  is  not  ea.sy  to  understand  how  such  a 
man  as  the  Prince  Feodor  lourievitch  could  consent  to  act 
such  a  farce,  his  whole  life  long.  There  was  nothing  of  the 
buffoon  about  him,  neither  the  necessary  docility,  nor  the 
indispensable  love  of  frolic.  Perhaps,  in  his  barbarian  sim- 
plicit)',  he  ne\er  realised  the  insulting  and  degrading  reality 
so  apparent  under  the  mockery.  In  Peter's  eyes,  evidently, 
he  rcj)rcsented  a  sort  of  huge  compromise  with  a  state  of 
things  he  himself  had  doomed  to  destruction.  Therefore  it 
was,  that  the  reformer  endured  his  long  moustaches  and 
his  Tartar  or  Polish  garments.  But,  even  while  Peter  set  up 
and  worshipped  this  strange  idol,  in  whose  person  he  seemed 
to  commemorate  and  atone  for  the  past,  he  scoftcd  at  and 
spurned  that  hated  past  itself,  and  all  the  ideas  and  memories 
he  associated  with,  and  Uxitlied  in,  it.  The  old  Kreml  of 
Moscow,  and  the  semi-Asiastic  pomp  of  the  Tsars,  the  ex- 
vassals  of  the  great  Han,  which  had  crushed  his  early  years 
— the  old  Burg  at  Vienna,  and  the  majesty  of  the  Reman 
C?Esars,  which  had  crushed  him  too,  in  that  never-to-be- 
forgotten  moment  during  his  earliest  appearance  on  the 
European  stage,  all  these  things  he  desired  to  cover  with 
ridicule,  and  cast  into  oblivion. 

The  person  chosen  to  play  this  dubious  part,  was  not 
devoid  of  merits  of  his  own.  Placed  apparently,  at  all 
events,  above  any  possibility  of  attack,  he  set  himself,  in  all 
reality  and  truth,  above  suspicion.  His  loyalty  was  unshake- 
able  ;  he  was  faif-hful,  honest,  and  unswerving.  His  heart 
was  flint,  his  hand  was  iron.  Amidst  all  the  intrigues,  the 
meannesses  and  the  cupidity  which  seethed  around  the 
sovereign's  person,  he  stands  out,  upright,  haughty,  clean- 
handed. When  an  insurrection  threatened  at  Moscow,  he 
cut  it  short,  after  his  own  fashion.  He  picked  200  rioters,  at 
hazard,  from  the  crowd,  and  hung  them  by  their  ribs  on  iron 
hooks  on  the  Red  Square  (so  appropriately  named),  in  the 
old  city.  Even  in  his  own  house,  he  had  dungeons  and 
instruments  of  torture,  and  when  Peter,  during  his  absence 
in  Holland,  reproached  him  for  some  abuse  of  his  terrible 
power,  committed  while  in  a  state  of  drunkenness,  he  sharply 
replied, — '  It  is  only  people  who  have  plenty  of  leisure  and 
can  spend  it  in   foreign  countries,  who  can   afford  to  waste 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES     205 

their  time  with  IvasJika.  Here  we  have  other  things  to  do 
than  to  gorge  ourselves  with  wine,  we  ivasJi  ourselves  every- 
day in  blood  !  '  ^ 

Notwithstanding  this,  I  remark  a  certain  Oriental  strain 
of  suppleness  in  his  character.  He  does  indeed  thwart  the 
sovereign  secretly,  and  even  occasionally  goes  so  far  as  to 
censure  him  openly,  so  that  in  17 13,  the  self-willed  despot 
himself  does  not  seem  to  know  how  to  manage  '  this  devil  of 
a  fellow  who  will  do  nothing  but  what  he  chooses  himself 
Romodanovski  appears  to  have  taken  his  sovereignty 
very  seriously,  and  never  permitted  any  jesting  on  the 
subject.  When  ^heremetief  announced  the  victory  at  Pol- 
tava, he  addressed  him  as  Sire  and  Your  Majesty.  No  one 
entered  the  courtyard  of  his  palace  except  on  foot  and  bare- 
headed ;  even  Peter  himself  left  his  cabriolet  at  the  outer 
door.  He  was  surrounded  with  all  the  luxuries  of  an  Asiatic 
monarch,  and  his  personal  freaks  were  quite  of  a  piece  with 
them.  When  he  went  out  hunting,  he  was  attended  by  500 
persons,  and  every  visitor,  of  whatever  rank,  who  entered 
his  presence,  was  forced  to  empty  a  huge  glass  of  coarse 
brandy,  seasoned  with  pepper,  served  by  a  tame  bear,  which 
growled  threateningly.  If  the  brandy  was  refused,  the 
bear  forthwith  dropped  his  tray,  and  hugged  the  visitor."- 
Yet  this  very  same  man  took  good  care  not  to  forget  that 
Menshikof  was  a  great  lover  of  fish,  and  never  failed  to  send 
him  the  best  in  his  own  fishponds,  and  he  bestowed  many 
a  barrel  of  wine  and  hydromcl  on  a  BiensJitchik  of  the  name 
of  Pospielof,  a  great  drunkard,  and  a  prime  favourite  of  the 
Tsar's.^ 

Sheremetief  was  also,  after  his  own  fashion,  a  representa- 
tive of  former  times.  At  Narva,  like  everybody  else,  he  lost 
his  head.  At  Poltava,  like  the  rest,  he  did  his  duty  bravely. 
In  his  will,  drawn  up  in  17 18,  he  confided  his  sinful  soul  to 
the  Tsar.*  That  one  trait  describes  the  man.  He  was  simple, 
candid,  and  very  ignorant.  '  What  rank  did  you  hold  before 
you  came  here  ? '  he  enquired  of  a  non-commissioned  officer, 
just  arrived  from  Germany.  'Master  at  arms.'  'Ann,  does 
nut  that  mean  poor,  in  German  ?     In  your  own  country  you 

^  /Wif>-  /.'s  IVn/i/tirs  and  Correspondence,  vol.  i.  pp.  226,  671. 

^  Hymrof,  Countess  Go/oikin  and  the  Times  ihe  Lived  in,  p.  76,  etc. 

*  Dulgoroukof,  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  55. 

*  Russian  Archive-,  1S75.  V'^'-  '•  P-  ^6. 


2o6  PETER  THE  GREAT 

were  poor;  here  you  shall  have  the  same  rank,  and  be  rich 
into  the  barcjain.'^ 

But  he  was  a  splendid  soldier:  always  in  the  forefront  of 
the  iJattle,  tranquil  and  calm  under  a  hail  of  bullets,  adored 
by  all  his  men.  If  he  happened  to  see  an\'  officer,  who  had 
served  under  him,  passing  throuf^h  the  streets  of  Moscow, 
he  never  failed  to  leave  his  coach,  as  richly  i^ilt  as  Men- 
shikofs  own,  and  clasp  his  old  comrade's  hand.  Generous, 
open-hearted,  and  hospitable,  he  fed  an  army  of  bcs^^i^ars, 
and  kept  open  house  for  fifty  persons  every  day.  Me  was 
one  of  the  last  specimens  of  the  best  and  most  attractive 
type  of  the  old  Russian  Boyard. 

Alexander  Danilovitch  Menshikof  was  another  and  very 
different  t}'pe.  He  opens  the  long  series  of  great  parvenus, 
the  creatures  of  the  Russian  Sovereign's  caprice.  The  story 
goes,  that,  in  his  youth,  he  had  been  a  pastry-cook's  boy.  Ac- 
cording to  family  documents,  he  should  be  descended  from  an 
ancient  Lithuanian  family.  There  ma\'  be  truth  in  both  these 
versions.  The  son  of  a  needy  gentleman  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Smolensk  may  very  well  have  sold  pastry  in  the 
Moscow  streets.  A  knight  of  St  Louis  certainly  sold  cakes 
at  Versailles,  in  Sterne's  days.-  In  any  case,  his  father  never 
was  more  than  a  corporal  in  the  Preobrajenski  regiment, 
and  he  himself  was  serving  in  it  as  a  sergeant,  somewhere 
about  1698.  He  may  have  combined  his  military  duties 
with  the  sale  of  pii-ogiii.  Even  in  Peter's  newlj'-raised  regi- 
ments a  very  curious  commercial  element,  the  outcome  of 
traditions  inherited  from  the  Shrltsy,  long  survived.  I?ut 
already,  at  that  period,  the  young  man  was  supposed  to  stand 
high  in  the  Tsar's  good  graces.  'Ihe  Sovereign  always  called 
him  by  a  pet  name  (y//c.i77j7//Cv?),  and,  even  in  public,  la\'ishcd 
proofs  of  an  almost  passionate  tenderness  upon  him.^  My 
readers  will  recollect  the  story  of  the  part  he  is  said  by  some 
persons  to  have  played  in  a  violent  scene  at  the  house  of 
SheTn,  during  which  Peter  had  to  be  recalled  to  reason.'* 
According  to  other  stories,  his  favour  was  originally  due  to  a 
different,  though  an  equally  salutary  and  important,  inter- 
vention in  the  Sovereign's  destiny.  Peter,  we  are  told,  while 
on   his   way  to  dine  \\  ith  a  certain  Boj'.ird,  was  accosied  by 

*  Rruce's  Memoirs  {\.ow^ox\,  1782),  p.  11^. 

^  S'li  inicrttiil  Joiiniev,  cliaplcr  headed  'The  Pastrycook. 

*  .See  .Soloviet',  vol.  xiv.  p.  267.  ■•  See  ante,  p.  1 28. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES     207 

the  Pirojnik.  Pleased  with  his  countenance,  he  took  him 
with  him,  and  desired  him  to  stand  behind  his  chair  durin^^ 
the  meal.  Just  as  the  Tsar  stretched  out  his  hand  to  help 
himself  to  a  dish,  a  gesture,  and  a  few  low  words,  from  the 
pastry  cook,  suddenly  checked  him.  Some  hours  previously 
the  Pirojnik  had  been  in  the  Boyard's  kitchen,  and  had 
observed  preparations  for  an  attempt  to  poison  the  chief 
guest.  The  dish  was  forthwith  given  to  a  dog,  the  truth  of 
the  allegation  proved,  the  Boyard  and  his  accomplices 
arrested,  and  thus  Alexashkd s  astonishing  career  began. ^ 

Born  in  1763,  a  year  before  Peter  himself,  tall,  well-built, 
and  handsome,  Menshikof,  unlike  his  master  and  the  great 
majority  of  contemporary  Russians,  had  a  pronounced  taste 
for  cleanliness,  and  even  for  personal  elegance.  The  repre- 
sentative part  which  he  was  later  called  upon  to  play  was 
the  result,  to  a  certain  extent,  of  this  peculiarity.  Yet  he 
was  quite  uneducated  ;  he  never  learnt  to  read,  nor  to  write, 
beyond  signing  his  name.^  According  to  Catherine  II.,  who 
should  have  had  good  opportunities  for  learning  the  truth, 
he  never  had  '  one  clear  idea  on  any  subject  whatsoever.'  ^ 
But,  like  Peter,  though  in  a  very  inferior  degree,  he  had  a 
talent  for  appropriating  notions  on  every  subject,  including 
the  habits  of  the  great  world.  He  was  his  Sovereign's 
shadow ;  he  was  with  him  under  the  walls  of  Azof,  and 
shared  his  tent ;  he  accompanied  him  abroad,  and  shared  his 
studies  there.  He  took  part  in  the  destruction  of  the 
Streltsy,  and  is  said  to  have  boasted  that,  with  his  own  hand, 
he  had  shorn  off  the  heads  of  twenty  of  the  rebels.  After 
having  allowed  Peter  himself  to  clip  his  beard,  he  performed 
the  barber's  office  on  all  the  members  of  the  Moscow  Munici- 
pality, and  then  led  them  into  the  presence  of  the  Tsar,  thus 
symbolising  his  future  co-operation  in  the  great  man's  work. 
As  early  as  1700,  he  seems  to  have  performed  the  duties  of 
major-domo  in  the  Sovereign's  house,  and  to  have  occupied 
a  quite  special  place  in  his  affections.  In  his  letters  Peter 
calls  him  '  Mm  Herzenskind'  (child  of  my  heart),  *  Min  beslcr 

^  Hruce's  JSIcmoirs,  p.  76. 

^  The  instances  quoted  by  Ousirialof  (vol.  iv.  p.  2io)  in  siniport  of  his  contrary 
assertion  of  signatures  to  which  the  favourite  is  saiil  to  have  added  such  post- 
scripts as  vzial  (receise<l).  or  ptinial  i  s/'isa/sia  (received  and  answeredji,  are  not 
conclusive.  Catherine's  tcstiriiony  is  far  more  convincing  See  also  EssipoPs 
Bio^iaphy  (Russian  Archives,  1S75,  ^'^1  "■  P-  5^9^  '^"^'  Koiirakin  (Archives, 
vol.  i.  p.  76).  ^  Leiter  to  Grinim,  Jan.  20lh,  1776  (Sbornik). 


2oS  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Fraut'  (my  best  friend),  or  even  'J////  Ihudcr]  forms  which 
he  never  used  in  addrcssini^  any  other  person.  The  favour- 
ite's answers  arc  couched  in  etjuall}'  famihar  terms,  and — 
this  detail  is  very  significant — he  never  adds  an}'  formula  of 
respect  before  his  signature,  although  Sheremetief  himself 
alwa}s  signed  ' Naiposlicdnieishy'i  rab  tvoV  (the  lowest  of 
)'our  slaves).^ 

According  to  general  contemporary  opinion,  there  was 
soinething  more  than  mere  friendship  in  this  connection. 
Teter's  indiftcrence  to  imputations  of  a  vicious  nature  was, 
and  always  remained,  very  singular.  A  master-at-arms,  in 
the  Preobrajenski  regiment,  convicted,  in  1702,  of  having 
spoken  in  the  most  open  manner  on  this  odious  subject, 
was  merely  relegated  to  a  distant  garrison.  Such  incidents 
happened  several  times  over.'^ 

Yet  the  favourite  certainly  had  mistresses — two  sisters, 
Daria  and  Barbara  Arscnief — both  of  them  maids  of  honour 
to  the  Tsarevna  Nathalia,  the  Sovereign's  favourite  sister. 
He  wrote  them  common  letters,  and  they  may  be  concluded 
to  have  thought  it  better  not  to  betray  any  sign  of  jealousy. 
Jie  ended  by  marrying  the  eldest,  in  connection  with  whom 
Peter  appears  to  have  had  some  personal  obligation  of  a 
doubtful  character.  When  Menshikof  led  Daria  to  the  altar, 
he  did  so  in  obedience  to  a  sort  of  order  from  his  august 
friend,  inspired  by  some  mysterious  scruple.  Here  we  have 
an  unexplained  case  of  con.science,  a  confused  and  darkly- 
shadowed  corner  in  the  Tsar's  personal  history,  full  of 
dubious  secrets  and  strange  promiscuities,  which  tempt  and 
yet  repel  the  enquiring  student.  In  1703,  the  two  triends, 
'although  unworthy,' — so  runs  Peter's  letter  to  Apraxin, — 
were  made  Knights  of  St  Andrew,  on  the  very  same  day.^ 
And  then  Alexashkds  wonderful  fairy  tale  began. 

In  1706,  he  was  a  Prince  of  the  Holy  P2mpire  ;  the  follow- 
ing year,  after  his  victory  over  the  Sw-cdish  general  Marde- 
leldt,  at  Kalisz,  he  assumed  the  rank  of  a  sovereign  Russian 
prince  {Vladictielnyi  rousskn  Ktiiaz),  with  the  title  of  Duke 
of  Ijora,  and  the  whole  of  Ingria  as  his  hereditary  appanage. 
He  was  also  Count  of  Dubrovna,  of  Gorki,  and  of  Potchep  ; 
hereditary  Sovereign  of  Oranienbaum  and  of  Batourin  ; 
Generalissimo ;  Member  of  the  Chief  Council ;  Marshal  of 

*  Wyttiitf^s  and  Correspjudcnce  of  Piter  the  Great,  vol.  iii.  pp.  7S0-7S2. 
"  Russian  Archives,  1875,  vol.  ii.  p.  236.  ^  Ibid. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES      209 

the  Empire  ;  President  of  the  MiHtary  Administration  ; 
Admiral  of  the  Red  ;  Governor-General  of  St  Petersburg  ; 
Lieutenant-Colonel  of  the  Preobrajenski  Regiment,  and  also 
of  the  two  regiments  of  the  Body  Guard  ;  Captain  of  the 
Bombardier  Company ;  and  Knight  of  the  Orders  of  St 
Andrew,  St  Alexander,  the  Elephant,  the  White  and  the 
Black  Eagle. 

Even  this  did  not  suffice  him.  In  171 1,  he  was  negotiat- 
ing with  the  Dowager  Duchess  of  Courland  to  buy  up  her 
title  and  her  Duchy.  The  next  year,  being  confident  of 
success,  he  caused  the  officials  of  the  country  to  make  their 
subjection  to  him.^  Though  obliged,  by  the  indignation  of 
the  Polish  Court,  to  delay  taking  definite  possession  of  the 
Duchy,  he  would  not  renounce  his  hope  of  ultimate  success, 
and  revenged  himself  on  the  Polish  lords,  by  forcing  them 
to  sell  him  huge  tracts  of  country  at  an  enormous  sacrifice. 
He  added  enormous  wealth  to  all  his  other  splendours.  In 
the  Ukraine  he  bargained  with  Mazeppa  for  the  whole  dis- 
trict of  Potchep,  and  even  took  possession  of  property  there, 
which  actually  belonged  to  Cossack  officers.  A  stake  adorned 
with  his  arms,  set  up  in  any  village,  equalled  a  proprietory 
title.  He  had  no  hesitation,  in  case  of  necessity,  about 
adding  a  gallows.  He  undertook  commercial  speculations, 
too,  which,  backed  as  they  were  by  his  almost  absolute 
power,  could  not  fail  to  be  lucrative.  In  conjunction  with 
Tolstoi"  and  the  Jew  Shafirof,  he  set  up  factories,  which  he 
endowed  with  arbitrary  privileges.- 

The  only  limit  his  power  knew,  was  the  Sovereign's 
periodical  repentances,  which  were  always  followed  by 
measures  of  repression  directed  against  the  favourite's 
abuses.  With  these  exceptions,  his  dictatorship  was,  in  a 
sense,  more  absolute  than  Peter's  own,  for  it  was  never 
limited,  in  Menchikof's  case,  by  any  higher  considerations. 
If  the  Imperial  resident,  Pleyer,  is  to  be  believed,  he  even 
went  so  far  as  to  countermand  the  Tsar's  own  orders.  He 
would  ill-treat  the  Tsarevitch  in  his  father's  presence,  seizing 
him  by  the  hair  and  throwing  him  on  the  ground.  The 
Tsarevny  all  bowed  down  before  him.^ 

What  was  the  real  value  of  the  man,  and  how  was  it  that 

^  Despatch   from  de   Bie  to  the  States  General,  26ili  April,  1712  (Archives  of 
the  Hague).  -  Karnovitch,  Great  Knssiun  fortunes,  p.   120,  etc, 

'  Oubtrialof.  vol.  iv.  part  ii.  pp.  613,  628,  656. 


2IO  PETER  THE  GREAT 

he  dared  and  possessed  so  much?  From  the  military'  point 
of  view,  he  had  neither  knowiedt^c  nor  even  bravery.  '  lie 
lacked  experience,  kno\viedt;e,  and  courage,'  to  quote  W'liit- 
worth.^  I^ut  he  showed  great  endurance  in  bad  fortune,  was 
full  of  dash  when  the  fickle  goddess  smiled,  and  in  any 
case  his  energy  never  failed  him.  '  Active,  enterprising,' 
says  Cam[M-edon,  adding,  '  far  from  discreet,  inclined  to 
falsehood,  ready  to  do  an)-thing  for  the  sake  of  money.' ^ 
That  strange  mixture  of  serious-mindedness  and  puerilit}', 
which  was  so  characteristic  of  Peter,  was  equally  evident  in 
the  case  of  his  alter  ego.  In  August  1708, — when  just  about 
to  cross  the  Beresina,  and  to  fight  a  battle,  which  the  Swedes 
ardently  desired,  and  which  he  himself  desired  to  avoid, —  I 
find  him  absorbed  in  the  new  liveries  for  the  German  ser- 
vants he  was  sending  to  his  wife.  This  matter  of  detail 
seems  to  have  had  enormous  importance  in  his  e}'es.  While 
he  measured  gold  lace  and  sketched  out  pocket  flaps,  Charles 
XII.  manoeuvred  in  such  a  manner  that  the  battle  became 
inevitable.  Yet,  in  the  result,  it  was  less  disastrous  for  the 
Russian  troops  than  might  have  been  expected.  The  steadi- 
ness with  which  they  resisted  the  shock  gave  presage  of 
their  future  victory.  The  favourite  had  pulled  himself 
together.  In  later  years,  Patiomkin  would  appear  to  have 
been  much  of  the  same  school. 

At  Poltava  he  wasted  twenty-four  hours  before  under- 
taking a  pursuit,  which,  if  it  had  followed  more  immedi- 
ately on  the  defeat  of  the  Swedes,  would  infallibly  ha\e 
left  Charles  and  the  remnants  of  his  beaten  army  in  their 
conqueror's  hands.  By  the  tiine  he  came  up  with  Lowen- 
haupt  on  the  banks  of  the  Dnieper,  the  king  had  reached 
the  other  bank,  and  the  favourite,  who  only  had  a  strong 
body  of  cavalry  with  him,  found  himself  in  a  somewhat 
awkward  position.  But  his  lucky  star  and  his  audacity 
combined  to  save  him.  lie  made  as  though  the  whole 
victorious  army  were  close  upon  his  heels.  The  enemy, 
already  beaten  and  demoralised,  allowed  itself  to  be  deceived, 
and  L(")wenhaupt  capitulated. 

In  the  administrative  department  he  chiefly  used  his 
talents  to  enrich  himself  He  was  a  bold  and,  for  the  most 
part,  unchecked  thief     In    17 14,  the  excess    to    which    he 

'  Despatch,  Sept.  17,  1708  (Sbornik.  vol.  i.  p.  64). 
'  May  3id,  1725  (French  Foreign  Office). 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES     211 

carried  his  depredations  did,  indeed,  bring  about  an  enquiry, 
which  drag^ged  on  indefinitely.  But  he  was  crafty.  He 
produced  old  accounts,  according  to  which  the  Treasury 
owed  him  far  larger  sums  than  those  claimed  from  him. 
And  when,  after  four  whole  years,  he  found  himself  without 
an  answer  to  a  fresh  accusation,  he  betook  himself  to  Peter's 
presence,  and  addressed  him  somewhat  after  the  following 
fashion  : — '  These  accusers  and  examiners  of  mine,  none  of 
them  know  what  they  are  talking  about,  nor  what  they  do  ; 
they  are  making  a  fuss  about  trifles.  If  they  choose  to  call 
the  personal  use  I  may  have  made  of  certain  sums,  of  which 
I  had  the  handling,  a  robbery,  they  are  out  of  their  reckon- 
ing altogether.  Yes,  I  stole  the  100,000  roubles  of  which 
Nieganovski  speaks.  I  have  stolen  a  great  deal  more, — how 
much,  I  do  not  know  myself  After  Poltava  I  found  con- 
siderable sums  of  money  in  the  Swedish  camp.  I  took 
some  20,000  roubles  for  my  own  use.  Your  steward,  Kour- 
batof,  a  very  honest  man,  has  several  times  over  given  me 
other  sums,  drawn  from  your  exchequer,  both  in  coin  and 
bullion.  At  Lubeck  I  received  5000  ducats,  and  double  that 
sum  at  Hamburg  ;  in  Mecklenburg  and  the  German  Swedish 
possessions,  12,000  thalers  ;  at  Dantzig,  20,000,  and  more  that 
I  have  forgotten.  I  have  used  the  authority  you  gave  me 
after  my  own  fashion.  1  have  done,  on  a  large  scale,  what 
other  men  about  you  do  on  a  small  one.  If  I  have  been 
wrong,  I  should  have  been  warned  before.' 

Peter  was  disarmed.  He  felt  the  blame  was  partly  his, 
and  once  more  he  passed  the  sponge  across  the  slate.  But 
fresh  accusations  came  pouring  in.  A  credit  of  21,000 
roubles,  assigned  in  1706,  for  cavalry  remounts,  had  utterly 
disappeared.  The  same  thief  had  clone  the  work.  This 
time  the  military  authorities  interfered,  and  the  favourite 
was  condemned  to  loss  of  his  military  rank  and  functions. 
Once  more  Peter  forgave  him.  But  the  original  enquiry 
went  on,  and  others  were  added  to  it,  arising  out  of  the 
Imperial  minion's  breaches  of  trust  in  Poland,  in  Pomerania, 
in  the  government  of  St.  Petersburg, — everywhere,  in  fact, 
where  he  could  lay  his  hand,  and  there  was  hardly  a  pro- 
vince or  an  administrative  department  which  escaped 
it.  The  Tsar  grew  weary  at  last.  His  favourite's  insati- 
able greed  threatened  to  cause  diplomatic  friction.  The 
Dutch   Resident  accused   Zotof,  the  governor  of  Revel,  of 


212  PETER  THE  GREAT 

squeezing  the  merchants  belonging  to  his  country,  and 
dividing  the  produce  of  his  exactions  with  Menshikof. 
Year  by  year  Peter's  regard  grew  colder.  Little  by  little 
the  old  familiar  intercourse  died  away.  One  day  at  last,  in 
a  fit  of  displeasure,  he  threatened  to  send  the  incorrigible 
thief  back  to  his  old  life.  That  very  evening,  Menshikof 
entered  his  presence,  dressed  as  a  pastry-cook,  with  a  basket 
on  his  head,  calling  out,  '  I  sell  fresh-baked  piroguis.'  The 
Tsar  burst  out  laughing.  The  traitor  had  more  than  one 
string  to  his  bow.  He  had  Catherine's  constant,  unvarying, 
faithful  support.  She  had  been  his  mistress,  and  she  never 
forgot  it.  He  also  played  on  the  Tsar's  passionate  affection 
for  his  second  wife's  son,  little  Peter  Petrovitch.  He  never 
neglected,  during  the  sovereign's  absences,  to  send  him  con- 
stant news  of  his  '  priceless  treasure,'  telling  how  he  played 
at  soldiers,  repeating  his  childish  phrases,  and  going  into 
ecstasies  over  his  charms.  But,  above  all  things,  he  was  the 
one  man  on  whom,  putting  integrity  apart,  Peter  could  ab- 
solutely reckon  to  second  him,  or  supply  his  place,  with  a 
vigour,  a  resolution,  and  resourcefulness  which  never  failed. 
An  army  sent  into  Finland,  under  Apraxin,  was  in  danger 
of  being  starved  to  death.  Peter  was  away.  The  Senate, 
when  appealed  to,  came  to  no  decision  ;  the  merchants  re- 
fused to  deliver  food,  unless  it  was  paid  for  ;  and  the  treasury 
was  empty.  Menshikof  ordered  the  stores  to  be  broken 
open,  laid  hands  on  all  the  provisions  he  could  find,  and  sent 
them  off  to  Abo.  There  was  a  desperate  outcry ;  the 
senators,  who  were  all  more  or  less  interested  in  the  corn 
trade,  threatened  to  have  the  favourite  arrested.  He  faced 
the  storm  bravely,  and  had  no  difficulty,  when  the  Tsar  re- 
turned, in  justifx'ing  his  action.  His  bold  stroke  had  saved 
the  troops  in  Finland. 

And  lastl)',  the  unworthincss  of  his  accusers  was  in  his 
favour.  One  of  them,  Kourbatof,  was  himself  convicted  of 
fraud  in  1 721,  and  heavily  fined.  Thus,  till  the  end,  Men- 
shikof held  his  own,  more  and  more  closely  threatened,  but 
always  contriving  to  float.  In  1723,  when  for  the  twentieth 
time,  Catherine  ventured  to  take  up  the  cudgels  for  him, 
Peter  broke  in  roughl)',  '  Menshikof  came  into  the  world  just 
as  he  has  lived,  his  mother  bore  him  in  sin,  and  he  will  die  a 
knave.  If  he  does  not  amend  his  ways,  he  will  end  by  hav- 
ing his  head  cut  off.'     The  old  affection  had  quite  died  out. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES      213 

Even  the  favourite's  wit,  which  had  so  often  wrung  the  Tsar's 
forgiveness  from  him,  no  longer  served  him  as  it  once  had 
done.  Peter,  coming  into  his  palace,  saw  the  walls  bare,  and 
the  great  rooms  stripped  of  furniture.  He  enquired  the 
reason  of  this  desolation.  '  I  have  had  to  sell  my  hangings 
and  my  furniture  to  pay  the  fines  imposed  upon  me.'  '  Well, 
buy  them  back,  or  I  will  double  the  fine.' 

The  charm  was  broken.  Menshikof  was  removed  from 
the  presidency  of  the  military  administration  ;  he  was  forced 
to  disgorge  the  15,000  serfs  he  had  stolen  in  Mazeppa's 
former  domains.^  At  the  time  of  Peter's  death,  he  was 
living  in  semi  -  disgrace.  When  Catherine  succeeded, 
he  attained  to  yet  greater  position  and  power,  saw  his 
daughter  on  the  very  steps  of  the  throne,  and  then,  on  the 
eve  of  that  supreme  triumph,  his  fortune  crumbled  be- 
neath his  feet,  and  he  ended  his  days  in  exile,  on  a  daily 
pittance  of  a  few  copecks.  I  have  no  concern,  in  this  place, 
with  that  latter  half  of  his  career;  I  may  perhaps  return  to 
h  on  a  future  occasion. 

I  cannot,  whatever  may  have  been  imagined  and  asserted 
on  this  subject,  accept  this  collaborator  of  the  Tsar's  as  a 
man  of  great  intelligence ;  but  he  must  be  recognised  and 
appreciated  as  a  force  which, — used  by  Peter,  serving  as  it  did 
the  mightiest  will  known  in  modern  history  before  Napoleon's 
time,  and  so  sent  whirling  across  the  wild  uncultivated  steppes 
of  the  Russia  of  those  days,  to  open  up  that  wilderness, — had 
a  special  value  of  its  own.  It  overthrew  all  obstacles,  it 
broke  down  all  resistance,  and,  like  some  fiercely-  rushing, 
muddy  river,  it  carried  fruitful  germs  in  its  mire-stained  and 
turbid  waters. 

The  man  himself,  haughty,  brutal,  covetous,  and  cruel,  was 
neither  loveable  nor  loved.  When,  in  1706,  his  house  at 
Moscow  was  burnt  down,  the  whole  town  openly  rejoiced.- 
Peter  did  not  complain.  He  always  had  a  secret  leaning 
towards  those  of  his  servants  who  could  not  rely  on  any- 
thing, or  any  person,  save  himself. 

^  For  Menshikofs  biography  see  Essipof,  Solovief,   vol.   xvi,   p.   Z'^i,  etc.  ; 
Golikof,  vol.  vi.  p.  407,  etc.  ;  Nartof,  p.  47,  etc.  ;  Posselt,  vol.  i.  p.  545,  etc. 
^  Russian  Archives,  1S75,  part  ii.  p.  49  (Esbipof). 


SI4  PETER  THE  GREAT 


II 

I  now  come  to  the  second  order  of  the  Tsar's  collaborators. 
Some  of  them,  and  these  not  the  most  interesting,  belong  to 
the  old  nobility.  Feodor  Alcxicicvitch  Golovin,  who  was 
called,  after  Lefort's  death,  to  the  chief  place  at  the  Admiralty, 
and  to  the  head  of  the  Office  of  Foreign  Envoys  {Posolskoi 
Prikaz), — the  Foreign  Office  of  those  days, — was  neither  a 
sailor  nor  a  diplomat.  His  only  claims  to  distinction  con- 
sisted in  the  fact  that  his  brother  Ale.xis  had  married  one  of 
Menshikofs  sisters,  that  one  of  his  minions,  named  lagou- 
jinski,  was  later  to  be  specially  favoured  by  the  Tsar,  and 
that  he  wore  the  distinctive  symbol  of  his  naval  dignity,  a 
compass,  with  a  most  majestic  air.  Apraxin,  who  suc- 
ceeded him  as  Lord  High  Admiral,  in  1706,  possessed  more 
serious  qualities,  but  a  great  part  of  his  success  and  superi- 
ority was  due  to  the  presence  of  the  Norwegian  sailor, 
Cruys,  at  the  Admiralty  Board.  He  was  heartily  jealous  of 
his  subaltern,  and  seized  an  opportunity  of  getting  rid  of 
him,  vv'hich  presented  itself  in  1713,  with  shameful  eagerness. 
A  court  martial,  presided  over  by  the  Lord  High  Admiral, 
condemned  the  foreign  sailor  to  death,  in  consequence  of 
the  loss  of  a  ship  caused  by  some  misunderstanding  about  a 
signal.  This  ancestor  of  a  noble  family,  the  aristocratic 
pretensions  of  which  are,  it  must  be  confessed,  disputed  by 
many  genealogists,  was  anything  but  chivalrous !  Cruys, 
whose  sentence  was  commuted  by  Peter  to  one  of  perpetual 
banishment,  was  soon  back  in  St.  Petersburg ;  nothing  went 
right  at  the  Admiralty  after  he  left  it. 

The  Presidency  of  the  Posolskoi  Prikaz,  with  the  title 
of  Chancellor,  passed  from  Golovin  to  another  mere 
figurehead,  Gabriel  Ivanovitch  Golovkin.  Peter,  who  in- 
augurated the  system  which  Catherine  H.  was  largely  to 
develop,  had  a  fondness  for  separating  titles  from  their 
functions,  and  found  this  an  easy  means  of  gratifying  his 
taste  for  low-born  favourites.  Having  reduced  the  titular 
minister  to  a  mere  dummy,  he  caused  the  actual  work  of  his 
foreign  policy  to  be  performed  b\-  such  men  as  Ostermann 
and  lagoujinski.  Gabriel  Ivanovitch,  who  had  been  one  of 
the  Sovereign's  childish  playfellows,  and  later  one  of  his 
most  constant  boon  companions,  and,  who,  it  may  be  added, 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES     215 

was  related  to  him  throui^h  the  Naryshkin,  had  a  fine 
aptitude  for  taking  his  master's  tone.  He  thus  addresses 
him  in  an  official  letter — '  Your  Majesty  has  condescended 
to  insinuate  that  my  gout  was  the  result  of  too  much 
devotion  to  Venus.  I  owe  it  to  your  Majesty  to  inform 
you  of  the  real  truth,  which  is,  that  in  my  case  the  trouble 
rather  arises  from  excess  in  drinking.'  In  the  matter  of 
honesty  he  was  no  better  than  his  fellows.  He  was  gener- 
ally supposed  to  be  in  Mazeppa's  pay,  and  in  December 
17 1 4,  Peter  reproached  him,  before  the  assembled  Senate, 
with  the  frauds,  of  which  he  had  been  convicted  in  conjunc- 
tion with  Menshikof,  with  regard  to  military  supplies.^ 

Peter  found  some  better  servants,  as  far,  at  all  events,  as 
intelligence  went,  among  the  ranks  of  the  old  aristocracy. 
Tolstoi,  who  belonged  to  this  class,  fully  justified  the  Tsar's 
remark — '  Any  one  who  has  anything  to  do  with  him  had 
better  put  a  stone  in  his  pocket  with  which  to  draw  his 
teeth.'  And  this  other,  dropped  with  a  kiss  on  the  for- 
midable politician's  brow,  '  Oh !  head,  head,  if  I  had  not 
known  you  to  be  so  clever,  I  should  have  cut  you  off  long 
ago ! '  Tolstoi's  services,  shameful,  some  of  them,  but  all 
of  them  remarkable  in  their  way, — he  acted  at  one  time  as  a 
diplomat  at  Vienna  and  Constantinople,  at  another  as  a 
spy  on  the  unhappy  Alexis, — earned  him  the  blue  ribbon  of 
knighthood,  a  seat  in  the  Senate,  and  an  enormous  landed 
property.  His  teeth  were  not  drawn  until  after  Peter's  death. 
When  he  was  eighty-two  years  old,  he  came  into  conflict 
with  Menshikof,  and  ended  by  tasting  the  bitterness  of  exile, 
on  the  inhospitable  shores  of  the  White  Sea.^ 

Another  aristocrat,  Boris  Ivariovitch  Kourakin,  appears 
on  the  threshold  of  the  eighteenth  century, — the  earliest  and 
already  supremely  attractive  incarnation  of  the  high-born 
Russian  diplomatist,  with  whom,  since  those  daj's,  Europe 
has  grown  familiar, — full  of  Oriental  cunning  and  Slavonic 
adaptability, — as  much  in  love  with  literature  as  a  frequenter 
of  the  Hotel  Rambouillet, — and  as  passionately  fond  of 
every  kind  of  elegance  as  a  Versailles  courtier.  He  entered 
the  Tsar's  family  by  his  marriage  with  Xenia  Lapouhin, 
the  sister  of  Peter's  first  wife.  He  contrived  to  make  the 
most  of  this  relationship,  at  the  favourable  moment,  and, 

1  De  Bie  to  the  States  General,  Dec.  21,  1714  (Archives  of  the  Hague). 

2  Popof,  Stu<iy  of  'lolstoi  {Old  and  New  Russia),  1875. 

15 


2i6  PETER  THE  GREAT 

later  on,  to  cause  it  to  be  fori^otten.  lie  bec^an  his  career 
at  a  very  early  age — first  of  all  as  the  representative  of 
Russia  in  London,  at  the  Court  of  Queen  Anne,  then  in 
Hanover,  at  that  of  the  future  King  of  England,  and  finally 
in  Paris,  during  the  Regency,  and  the  early  years  of  Louis 
XV.'s  reign.  He  died  in  1727,  before  he  had  reached  the 
age  of  fifty.  In  the  course  of  his  diplomatic  career  he  strikes 
us  as  having  been  sorely  puzzled,  more  than  once,  as  to  his 
personal  behaxiour,  but  he  alwaj's  contrived  to  maintain  his 
own  dignity  and  that  of  his  country,  hiding  his  ignorance 
and  awkwardness  under  a  mantle  of  pride  and  charm,  which 
never  failed  him. 

But  I  must  keep  this  list  within  limits.  The  most  interest- 
ing figure  in  the  group  is  certain!}-  that  of  Basil  Nikititch 
Tatishtchcf,  descended  from  Rourik,  through  the  Princes  of 
Smolensk,  and  the  progenitor  of  a  race  of  men  as  turbulently 
active  as  himself.  Here  we  have  the  diciaticl par  excellence, 
— Peter's  best  pupil.  He  was  brought  up  in  a  school  at 
Moscow,  kept  by  a  P"renchman.  When  he  left  it,  Peter  sent 
him  abroad,  with  Nicplouief,  and  a  number  of  other  young 
men,  to  complete  his  education.  Some  of  these,  Nicplouief 
amongst  the  number,  were  already  married.  Travelling  by 
Revel,  Copenhagen  and  Hamburg,  they  went  to  Amsterdam, 
where  they  found  a  whole  colony  of  Russian  students. 
Twenty-seven  of  their  number  were  forthwith  despatched 
to  Venice,  where  they  were  to  take  service  with  the  fleets  of 
the  Republic.  Thus  Nicplouief  took  part  in  an  expedition 
against  the  Island  of  Corfu.  The  whole  of  the  Mediterranean 
and  the  Atlantic  coa  t  from  Cadiz  to  Genoa  was  dotted,  in 
those  days,  with  these  Russian  student  apprentices.  Special 
agents, — Beklcmishef  for  Southern  Europe,  Prince  Ivan 
Lvof  for  Holland,  and  one  of  the  Zotofs  for  France, — were 
deputed  to  overlook  and  direct  their  travels,  and  their  work. 
When  they  returned  home,  Peter  awaited  them  in  his 
cabinet,  and  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning,  candle  in  hand, 
— for  it  was  mid -winter  and  the  sun  had  not  risen — he 
verified  their  geographical  knowledge,  by  the  map,  treating 
them  very  roughly,  if  they  did  not  do  themselves  credit,  and 
showing  them  his  toil-worn  hands,  which  he  had  hardened 
purposely  '  as  an  example  to  all  the  world.'  ^ 

'  Nieplouiefs  Mcmoits,  p.  103.     Piekarski's  Science  and  Literature  in  Russia, 
pp.  141,  142. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES     217 

Thus  prepared,  Ni6plouief  served  his  country  as  a  diplomat 
in  Turkey,  as  Chief  of  the  Administration  in  Little  Russia, 
and  as  Director  of  Mines  in  the  Ural.  Tatishtchef  far  sur- 
passed him  in  many-sidedness,  in  the  ease  with  which  he 
applied  his  powers  to  every  kind  of  duty,  and  in  untiring 
activity.  He  was  a  model  pupil,  who  spent  his  whole  life 
reciting  his  well-learnt  lesson.  Like  his  master,  he  was  per- 
petually on  the  move,  and  had  his  finger  everywhere, — in 
military  matters,  diplomacy,  finance,  administration,  science, 
trade  and  manufactures.  Like  him,  he  was  an  eager  worker, 
deeply  sensible  of  his  own  responsibility.  Like  him,  he 
lived  a  life  of  perpetual  activity,  and  was  perpetually  stirring 
others  up  to  action.  Like  him,  he  was  universal,  superficial, 
and  minute  ;  like  him  too, — though  bound  to  the  East  with 
bonds  that  still  held  him  closely, — he  deliberately  turned  his 
face,  and  mind,  in  the  very  opposite  direction.  He  was 
present  at  the  taking  of  Narva  in  1704.  In  171 1,  while 
accompanying  Peter  along  that  fatal  road  which  was  to  lead 
them  to  the  banks  of  the  Pruth,  he  made  all  sorts  of  en- 
quiries and  archaeological  excavations,  in  the  hope  of  dis- 
covering the  tomb  of  Igor,  Rourik's  legendary  son.  Then, 
going  abroad  again,  he  spent  several  years  in  Berlin,  Breslau 
and  Dresden,  immersed  in  fresh  studies,  and  busily  collect- 
ing a  library.  A  little  later,  I  find  him  peforming  diplomatic 
functions  at  the  Congress  of  Aland,  Then,  again,  he  engages 
in  a  huge  undertaking — that  of  preparing  a  general  atlas  of 
the  Russian  dominions.  And  later  yet,  Peter,  just  starting 
for  his  Persian  Campaign,  is  offered  a  book  to  peruse  on  the 
journey,  a  'Chronicle  of  Mourom,'  written  by  the  Diciatlcl,  who 
suddenly  appears  in  the  character  of  a  historian.  And  even 
this  did  not  suffice.  He  was  sent  into  the  Ural,  where  the 
search  for  copper  mines  had  not  been  crowned  with  complete 
success.  He  started  without  delay,  reported  serious  flaws  in 
the  local  administration,  denounced  the  oppression  which  the 
native  tribes  had  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  agents  of  the 
Central  Power, founded  the  town  of  Ekaterinenburg — destined 
to  play  such  an  important  part  in  the  future  development  of 
the  mining  industry — established  schools  for  the  people,  and 
yet  found  time  to  learn  French,  with  the  help  of  a  grammar 
received  during  his  stay  at  Aland. 

At  the  time  of  Peter's  death  he  was  still  a  young  man. 
He  continued  to  take  an  active  and  personal  share  in  affairs 


2i8  PETER  THE  GREAT 

(jf  the  most  varied  kind,  and  at  his  death,  left  behind  him 
a  considerable  Uterary  work,  which  has  been  pubHshed  by 
Muller.  It  comprises  three  volumes  of  Russian  histor)',  to 
which — thanks  to  a  discovery  of  Pof^odin — two  others  were 
later  added,  and  an  Encyclopaedic  Dictionary,  carried  up 
to  the  letter  L.  The  value  of  these  literary  efforts,  which 
was  sharply  attacked  by  the  ei<^hteenth  century  historians, 
led  b)'  Schlc3zer,  has  been  considerably  vindicated  since  their 
time. 

Tatishtchef  was  no  exception  to  the  common  rule.  He 
was  removed  from  his  offices  by  his  master  in  1722,  in  con- 
sequence of  accusations  brought  against  him  by  Nikita 
Demidof,  and,  like  so  many  others,  died  in  exile,  though 
more  stoically  than  most  of  his  fellows.  When  he  was 
seventy  years  old,  feeling  his  end  approaching,  he  mounted 
his  horse,  rode  to  the  parish  church,  heard  Mass,  went  on  to 
the  grave}-ard,  chose  his  own  place  there,  and  bespoke  the 
priest's  attendance  for  the  following  day.  He  breathed  his 
last  at  the  very  hour  he  had  foretold,  just  as  the  last 
sacraments  were  being  administered  to  him.^ 

Peter  was  honoured,  and  singularl\-  fortunate,  in  having  a 
man  of  so  much  real  worth  and  moral  character  about  him, 
at  a  period  when  he  was  surrroundcd  by  such  beings  as 
Zotof  and  Nadajinski,  that  strange  Confessor,  whose  hand 
he  would  kiss  at  the  close  of  Mass,  and  whose  nose  he  would 
pull  five  minutes  afterwards  ;'-  a  man  whose  drinking  powers 
he  backed,  while  in  Paris,  against  those  of  Dubois'  secretary, — 
also  a  priest,  and  a  noted  toper.  When,  within  an  hour,  the 
P'rench  Abbe  rolled  under  the  table,  Peter  cast  his  arms 
about  the  victor's  neck,  and  congratulated  him  on  having 
'  saved  the  honour  of  Russia.'  This  Nadajinski  left  enormous 
wealth  behind  him.  Other  men,  and  of  a  very  different 
stamp,  happily,  helped  Peter  to  lay  the  foundations  of  his 
country's  greatness. 

Ill 

Tatishtchef's  character  and  origin  have  both  earned  him 
a  special  place  in  the  list  of  the  contemporary  'makers'  of 
the  great  reign. 

^  Popof,   TalishlchtJ  and  his    Times.      IJestoujet-Rioumin,  Study  in    Old  and 
New  Russia,  1875.  -  Pbllnitz's  Memoirs,  1791,  vul,  ii.  p.  66. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES      219 

lagoujinski,  the  son  of  an  organist  and  schoolmaster, 
ennployed  by  the  Lutheran  community  in  Moscow,  began 
by  performing  the  functions  of  a  boot-black,  to  which  he 
added  others  on  the  subject  of  which  '  decency,'  so  Weber 
puts  it,  'forbids'  him  'to  enlarge.'^  Thus  it  came  about 
that  Count  Golovin,  one  of  his  employers,  bethought  him 
of  placing  the  boot-black  in  Peter's  service,  with  the  object 
of  counteracting  Menchikof's  influence.  The  new  comer 
was  superior,  in  one  respect,  to  the  old  favourite.  Like 
him  he  was  a  thief,  but  he  made  no  secret  of  his  thievery, 
and  kept  it,  too,  within  more  reasonable  limits.  When  the 
Sovereign  spoke,  in  his  presence,  of  having  every  peculator 
hanged,  he  made  that  celebrated  answer,  '  Does  your 
Majesty  desire  to  get  rid  of  all  your  subjects?' 

He  was  faithful,  too,  after  a  fashion  of  his  own  ;  he  never 
betrayed  the  cause  which  his  protector  had  sent  him  to 
champion.  He  fought  resolutely  against  Menshikof,  and 
was  not  afraid  to  enter  into  open  struggle  with  the 
favourite's  great  protectress,  Catherine  herself.  His  cour- 
age, far  exceeding  his  talents, — which  indeed  appear  to 
have  been  very  moderate, — was  his  only  claim  to  his 
position  as  Public  Prosecutor  ;  one  in  which  he  showed  a 
world  of  energy,  and  a  severity  for  other  people's  weak- 
nesses, only  equalled  by  the  indulgence  he  claimed  for  his 
own.  But  the  great  favourite,  who  felt  his  own  omni- 
potence encroached  on,  had  his  revenge  at  last,  and,  after 
Peter's  death,  lagoujinski  was  seen  in  a  state  of  intoxica- 
tion— for  he  practised  every  kind  of  excess — stretched 
upon  the  newly-closed  coffin,  tearing  the  funeral  pall  with 
his  finger  nails,  and  calling  up  the  avenging  shade  of  the 
mighty  dead. 

Like  lagoujinski,  Shafirof  (Peter  Pavlovitch)  was  of 
Polish-Lithuanian  origin,  but  his  antecedents  are  more 
shadowy  and  obscure.  His  grandfather,  who  had  settled 
at  Orsha,  in  the  Province  of  Smolensk,  wai^  called  Shafir, 
and  bore  the  surname  common  amongst  his  Jewish  kindred, 
down  to  the  present  day,  of  Shaia  or  ShaToushka.  He  was 
a  broker,  an  individual  who  even  now  would  seem  an 
indispensable  adjunct  to  the  surroundings  of  most  Russian 
country  gentlemen.  The  long  greasy  gaberdine  he  wore, 
unmistakably    indicated    the    functions    he    performed,    and 

^  H.  Hermann,  Peier  der  Grosse  unci  der  Tsarevitch  Alexei,  1880,  p.  178. 


220  PETER  THE  GREAT 

the  race  from  whence  he  sprung,  Peter  Pavlovitch  dis- 
carded the  gaberdine,  but  he  preserved  all  the  other  dis- 
tinctive qualities  of  the  type.  The  Tsar  took  him  out  of  a 
shop  at  Moscow,  and  bestowed  him  on  Golovkin,  to  assist 
him  with  his  correspondence; — all  Jews,  Polish  or  otherwise, 
have  a  talent  for  languages.  When,  after  the  Battle  of 
Poltava,  Golovkin  was  made  Chancellor,  his  assistant  rose 
with  him,  and  the  former  cloth-merchant's  clerk  became 
Vice-Chancellor.  He  really  directed  all  the  foreign 
relations  of  the  country.  And  he  did  his  work  well.  In 
that  perilous  business  on  the  Pruth,  his  talents  worked  a 
miracle,  and  saved,  or  something  very  like  it,  both  the  Tsar 
and  his  Empire.  This  put  him  on  the  pinnacle  of  his 
glory.  He  had  grown  rich,  of  course, — he  had  been  made 
a  baron, — equally  of  course, — he  had  married  five  of  his 
daughters  into  the  greatest  families  in  the  countr)',  Dol- 
gorouki,  Golovin,  Gagarin,  Hovanski,  and  Soltykof 
Suddenly,  there  came  a  gust  of  wind, — and  he  was  swept 
away.  Menshikof,  whose  own  harvest  he  had  prematurely 
reaped,  the  Chancellor  Golovkin,  whose  accession  he  had 
too  openly  coveted,  and  Ostermann, — himself  a  parvenu, 
who  desired  to  stand  in  the  Vice-Chancellor's  shoes,  took 
advantage  of  one  of  Peter's  prolonged  absences,  to  plot  his 
ruin.  On  the  15th  of  P'ebruary,  1723,  he  was  actually  on 
the  scaffold,  his  head  already  laid  on  the  block,  and  '  the 
executioner's  assistants  pulling  at  his  feet,  so  that  his  great 
belly  might  touch  the  ground.'^  But  he  escaped  death. 
One  of  Peter's  secretaries  arrived,  just  in  time,  with  a  letter 
commuting  his  sentence  to  perpetual  banishment.  He 
attended  the  Senate  for  the  ratification  of  this  letter,  and, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  an  eye-witness,  '  trembling 
still,  and  with  death  in  his  face,'  he  received  the  congratu- 
lations and  hand-clasps  of  his  colleagues,  who  had  un- 
animously sentenced  him  to  execution.  He  took  measures, 
of  course,  which  resulted  in  his  not  being  sent  to  Siberia, 
was  imprisoned  at  Novgorod,  and  there  patiently  awaited 
Peter's  death.  The  moment  this  event  took  place,  he 
recovered  his  liberty,  re-entered  political  life,  as  President 
of  what  we  should  call  the  Board  of  Trade,  and,  by  means 
of  new  commercial  operations,  soon  recovered  his  confiscated 
fortune. 

1  Biischings- Magazin ,  vol.  xxi.  p.  195.     Solovief,  vol.  xviii.  p.  141. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES     221 

His  father's  sister  married  another  baptized  Jew,  who, 
under  a  borrowed  name,  became  the  progenitor  of  another 
family  of  agents,  which  played  a  prominent  part  in  the 
diplomatic  history  of  the  reign,  the  Viesselovski. 

The  P}ybylslitcliiks, — agents  specially  connected  with  the 
Exchequer,  and  inventors  of  new  sources  of  revenue 
{Pryhy/c,  profit) — form  a  class  apart  in  the  great  category  of 
the  Dielatiels.  Of  this  class,  Kourbatof  was  the  most 
eminent  representative.  His  figure,  a  new  one  then  to 
Russia,  and  even  to  Europe  in  general,  is  that  of  the  true 
modern  financier,  greedy  of  gain,  but  always  desirous  of 
preserving  a  nice  balance  in  fiscal  matters.  Peter  himself 
could  not  always  rise  to  the  level  of  this  advocate  of  wise 
economic  formulas,  and  ended  by  sacrificing  him  to  the 
spite  of  that  fierce  Inquisitor,  Romodanovski,  whose 
sanguinary  excesses  Kourbatof  had  ventured  to  disapprove. 
The  man  was  certainly  not  immaculate,  and  his  conduct 
in  the  unimportant  position  of  Vice- Governor  of  Arch- 
angel, to  which  he  was  finally  relegated,  even  appears  to 
have  justified  his  disgrace.  None  the  less,  he  appears  before 
us  as  the  victim  of  that  struggle  between  two  worlds, 
two  conceptions  of  the  State,  and  two  ideas  of  social 
existence,  the  right  side  of  which  the  great  Sovereign  him- 
self did  not  always  succeed  in  keeping. 

This  struggle  is  even  more  sharply  and  more  dramatically 
defined  in  the  story  of  the  unfortunate  Joseph  Alexieievitch 
Solovief,  the  son  of  an  Archangel  merchant,  whom  Peter 
first  of  all  appointed  a  Director  of  Customs,  and  afterwards, 
his  commercial  agent  and  banker  in  Holland.  Solovief, 
whose  financial  operations  had  attained  considerable  im- 
portance, was  involved,  in  17 17,  in  the  disgrace  which  befel 
one  of  his  brothers,  who  filled  a  modest  position  in  Men- 
shikofs  household.  He  was  prosecuted,  extradited,  given 
over  to  the  Secret  Police,  and  finally  acknowledged 
innocent.  But  his  legs  and  arms  had  been  broken  in  the 
Torture  Chamber,  and  all  his  fortune,  somewhere  about  a 
million  of  roubles,  had  utterly  disappeared. 

Solovief  was  but  a  '  common  fellow.'  Possoshkof,  who 
shared  this  disability,  gives  an  amusing,  though  a  sad 
enough  description  of  the  relations  of  people  of  his  own 
class  with  the  mighty  ones  of  the  day.  Here  is  his  own 
story  of  his   adventures  with   Prince   Dimitri   Mihailovitch 


222  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Galitzin,  from  whom  he  requested  permission,  in  17 19,  to 
establish  a  brandy  distillery.  At  that  period  the  Russian 
Montesquieu,  who  had  some  private  property,  possessed 
influential  relations,  and  was  Kourbatof's  partner  in  several 
industrial  enterprises,  had  already  attained  a  certain  im- 
portance. Vet  no  one,  to  judi^e  by  the  answer  his 
petition  received,  would  dream  it.  Without  a  word  of 
explanation,  he  was  laid  violent  hands  on,  and  cast  into 
prison.  At  first  he  was  astounded,  then  he  bewailed  his 
fate,  and  finally,  after  a  week,  ventured  to  recall  the  fact  of 
his  existence  to  the  absent-minded  Bo\'ard.  '  Why  am  I 
in  prison  ? '  he  asked.  '  Why  the  devil  is  this  man  in 
prison?'  enquired  Galitzin;  and  as  no  one  could  answer 
the  question,  he  signed  an  order  for  Possoshkof's  release. 

This  love  of  summary  methods,  and  haughty  scorn  of 
individual  rights,  was  equally  acceptable  to  the  old  Russian 
spirit,  and  to  the  revolutionary  tendencies  of  the  modern 
party.  Possoshkof  himself  was  their  accomplice.  He  was 
a  violent  partizan,  both  of  Peter's  reforms  and  of  the 
extreme  measures  he  cmploj-ed  to  ensure  their  success.  He 
would  gladly,  even,  have  increased  their  merciless  severity. 
In  his  eagerness  to  inculcate  the  theories  of  that  economic 
school,  of  which  the  Prybylshtchiks,  led  by  Kourbatof,  were 
the  practical  exponents,  he  would  fain  have  called  all  that 
intolerance,  over-haste,  and  excessive  zeal,  so  dear  to  all 
sectarians,  to  his  aid.  His  fate  resembled  that  of  most  of 
his  fellows.  Nothing,  he  believed,  but  the  iron  ploughshare 
and  the  devouring  fire  could  suffice  to  open  the  soil  of  his 
native  land,  which  for  ages  had  lain  fallow  and  briar-grown. 
The  terrible  machine  he  helped  to  set  in  motion  crushed 
and  destroyed  himself  How  did  it  come  about  that,  although 
from  one  end  to  the  other  of  his  career,  and  by  the  solitary 
effort  of  a  thought  which  evidently  sprang  from  the  same 
source,  he  walked,  as  it  were,  on  Peter's  flank,  he  never 
succeeded,  even  temporarily,  in  entering  into  close  relations 
with  him  ?  In  this  respect  his  case  was  an  altogether  special 
one.  He  had  ideas  to  dispose  of,  and  Peter  seems  to  have 
had  a  settled  determination  never  to  accej^t  anything  of  the 
kind  from  his  own  people.  Apart  from  that,  the  general 
tendency  of  the  reign  was  towards  equality,  and  the  great 
Tsar  would  have  had  no  scruple  about  taking  a  inoujik  to  be 
his  helper,  and  even   his  closest  companion.     Of  this  the 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES     223 

story  of  the  Demidofs  gives  clear  proof.  The  history  of  the 
beginnings  of  the  Demidof  fortune — the  doubtful  anecdote  of 
the  pistol  marked  with  the  name — in  those  days  a  celebrated 
one — of  Kuchenreiter,  and  confided  to  a  workman  at  Toula, 
who  had  undertaken  to  mend  it,  and  the  Tsar's  colloquy 
with  the  young  gunsmith, — is  in  common  knowledge. 

The  Tsar:  'Ah!  if  we  could  only  make  pistols  like 
that.' 

The  Gunsmith  :  '  That's  no  very  difficult  matter.' 

The  Tsar  (with  an  oath  and  a  box  on  the  ear) :  '  Do  the 
work  first,  rascal,  and  then  you  may  boast.' 

The  Locksmith  :  '  Look  closely  first,  Batioushka,  and  see. 
The  pistol  you  admire  is  of  my  making.     Here  is  its  fellow.' 

The  gunsmith  was  then  known  as  Antoufief ;  his  father, 
Demid  Grigorevitch,  a  serf  of  the  Crown,  working  as  a 
blacksmith  in  a  village  of  Parshimo,  in  the  district  of 
Alexin,  and  province  of  Toula,  had  settled  in  the  prin- 
cipal town  of  his  province  towards  the  year  1650.  In 
1694 — the  date  usually  assigned  to  this  first  meeting  with 
the  Sovereign,  the  reputed  source  of  the  proverbial  riches  of 
the  Demidof  family,  and  of  the  present  development  of  the 
mineral  industry  in  Russia,  —  the  old  blacksmith's  son, 
Nikita,  was  nearing  his  fortieth  jear.^  He  was  a  married 
man,  and  Peter,  so  we  are  told,  after  having  duly  apologised, 
invited  himself  to  dinner  in  his  cottage.  The  meal  was  a 
cheerful  one,  and  the  Tsar  paid  the  reckoning  with  a  conces- 
sion of  ground  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Toula,  in  which  an 
iron  mine  was  to  be  opened  and  worked.  This  was  a  mere 
beginning.  By  degrees  the  activity  and  enterprising  spirit 
of  Nikita  and  his  .son  Akinfy  (Hyacinth)  were  welcomed  in 
all  the  mines  in  the  Ural.  In  1707,  Nikita  was  personally 
ennobled  under  the  name  of  Demidof.  In  1720  his  honour 
was  made  hereditary,  but  he  kept  to  his  peasant  dress  ;  and 
Peter,  though  he  always  treated  him  with  the  greatest  con- 
sideration, continued  to  address  him  by  his  rustic  and 
familiar  name  of  Demidytch.  It  was  not  only  as  a  com- 
mercial and  business  man,  the  founder  of  numerous  works  at 
Shouralinsk,  Vynorsk,  Viershnietagilsk  Nijnictagilsk,  and 
Douhomsk,  that  the  Tsar  valued  Nikita.  His  gay  and 
jovial  character,  his  turn  for  satire,  and  his  biting  wit,  made 

1  Russian  Archives,  1878,  vol.  ii.  p.  120.  Karnovitch,  Great  Russian  Fortunes, 
p.  163,  etc. 


224  PETER  THE  GREAT 

him  a  worthy  follower  of  Lcfort.  He  died  at  Toula  in  1725, 
at  the  at;c  of  6S,  Icavinc;  behind  him  an  immense  fortune, 
and — a  prodij^ious  and  almost  unique  fact  in  those  surround- 
ings, and  at  that  period — a  reputation  for  perfect  honesty. 
Russian  industry  has  more  reason  to  congratulate  itself  on 
this  forefather  than  the  Russian  navy  on  the  ancestor  with 
with  which  it  pleased  Peter  to  endow  it,  in  the  person  of 
Golovin. 

Another  peasant's  name,  one  of  the  greatest  in  modern  R  us- 
sian  history — equally  eminent  in  literature  and  science,  but  con- 
nected also  with  much  industrial  endeavour  and  success — here 
rises  to  my  memory.  When  Poushkin  asserted  that  Lomon- 
ossof — historian,  rhetorician,  mechanic,  chemist,  mineralogist, 
artist,  and  poet — was  '  the  first  Russian  University,'  he  hardly 
said  enough.  The  active  period  of  Lomonossofs  life  (he 
was  born  in  171 1)  was  not  actually  contemporary  with 
Peter's.  Yet  he  belongs  to  that  great  period  ;  he  was  its 
direct  outcome  and  its  worthy  fruit — the  very  personification 
of  its  genius,  with  all  its  civilising  virtues,  its  deficiencies, 
and  its  contradictions.  His  humble  origin,  though  he  never 
forgot  it,  and  rather  took  pride  in  it,  did  not  prevent  his  prais- 
ing even  the  lawsof  serfdom,  the  rigour  of  which  the  Reformer 
greatly  increased,  and  from  claiming — peasant  as  he  was 
himself — 200  peasants  for  the  perpetual  service  of  a  factory 
he  had  founded.  Son  of  the  people  though  he  was,  the 
songs  and  ceremonies  and  popular  legends  of  his  country 
were  nothing  to  him  but  a  remnant  of  a  distant  past,  long 
since  gone  by,  and  devoid  of  any  save  an  historic  interest. 
One  of  the  deepest  and  most  expressive  forms  of  the  national 
poetry,  the  BjltJics,  traces  of  which  may  even  now  be  dis- 
covered in  some  of  the  northern  provinces,  entirely  escaped 
this  poet's  notice.  He  had  no  ear  nor  soul  for  anything  but 
the  classic  poetry  of  the  west,  with  its  strict  forms,  so  soon 
to  fall  out  of  date  —the  ode,  the  panegyric,  the  heroic  poem, 
the  tragedy,  and  the  didactic  epistle.  In  literature,  as  in 
science,  he  was  very  apt  to  consider  his  activity  as  a  duty  to 
be  performed  in  the  Tsar's  service,  a  kind  of  official  task. 
The  universal  process  of  requisitioning  and  enrolment,  which 
Peter's  s)'stcm  tended  to  carry  even  into  matters  of  indi- 
vidual intellect,  and  activity,  is  clearly  denoted  in  this 
peculiarity. 

Yet  Lomonossof  pla)cd  an   important   part  in   that  swift 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES     225 

and  general  transformation,  out  of  which  modern  Russia 
rose.  He  imparted  a  powerful  and  definite  impulse  to  that 
mighty  effort  whereby  the  broken  links  of  a  chain  which 
parted  in  the  thirteenth  century,  were  welded  afresh,  and 
his  native  country  re-endowed  with  the  intellectual  patri- 
mony common  to  the  whole  civilised  world.^ 


IV 

Most  of  Peter's  foreign  collaborators, — so  far,  at  least,  as 
appearances  went, — were  mere  subalterns.  They  often  did 
all  the  work,  but  they  generally  remained  in  obscurity. 
Peter  would  never  have  committed  a  fault,  the  crushing  re- 
sponsibility of  which  the  Empress  Anne  was  to  assume  in 
later  days, — that  of  putting  his  country  under  the  direct 
power  of  such  a  man  as  Buhren.  As  long  as  the  great  Tsar 
reigned,  Ogilvy,  the  Scotchman,  might  plan  the  battles,  which 
ended  by  checkmating  Charles  XII.,  but  it  was  Shercmctief 
who  won  them. 

These  foreigners,  whether  Scotchmen,  Germans,  or  Dutch, 
assimilated  themselves  to  their  local  surroundings, — became 
Russianized,  in  fact, — with  the  most  extraordinary  facility. 
That  shifty  and  eminently  porous  soil  rapidly  absorbed  all 
their  native  originality.  The  only  thing  which  distinguished 
Andrew  Vinnius,  the  Russian-born  son  of  a  Dutch  emigrant, 
from  his  Muscovite  surroundings,  was  his  superior  education. 
He  professed  the  religion  of  the  country,  he  spoke  its  lan- 
guage, he  had  even  adopted  its  moral  habits.  He  might  be 
Menshikof's  superior  in  such  particulars  as  the  casting  of 
cannon,  and  the  manufacture  of  gunpowder, — but  in  the 
matter  of  filling  his  own  pocket,  he  was  very  little  better 
indeed.  And  his  fellows  in  the  tumultuous  stream  of  foreign 
adventurers,  which  Peter  let  loose  upon  his  country,  belonged, 
as  a  general  rule,  to  the  same  order,  and  betrayed  all  the 
defects  of  their  profession.  The  germs  of  corruption  and 
degradation,  which  the  Tartar  conquest  had  sown  in  the 
national  soul,  sprang  into  life,  in  answer  to  their  touch. 

James  Bruce,  a  Scotchman,  who  passed  at  Court  for  a 
chemist  and  astronomer  of  genius,  and  was  held  in  the  city 

*  Biliarski,  Materials  for  Lomonossof  s  Biography ' (Si.  Petersburg,  1865), 
Lamanski,  Lomonossof,  Biogaphical  Studies  (St.  Petersburg,  1864). 


226  PETER  THE  GREAT 

for  a  sorcerer,  had  none  of  the  qualities  of  a  Newton  or  of 
a  Lavoisier,  but  many  of  the  pccuHarities  of  an  ordinary 
sharper.  Endless  lawsuits, — for  abuse  of  authority,  pecula- 
tion, dishonesty  in  the  supply  of  his  department  (he  was  at 
the  head  of  the  artillery), — brouc^ht  him  to  loc^c^crheads  with 
justice.  The  Tsar  always  ended  by  forj^ivjnc^  him.  There 
was  a  certain  dilettantism,  and  self-tauc^ht  quality  about  the 
rascal's  knowledge,  which  was  irresistibly  attractive  to  Peter, 
and  which,  in  those  surroundings,  possessed  a  certain  value 
of  its  own.  A  whole  legend  had  grown  up  round  the  light 
which  streamed,  on  long  winter  nights,  from  the  windows  of 
his  laborator}-  in  the  Souharef  l"ower.  His  astronomical 
discoveries  bordered  closely  on  astrolog}-,  and  his  celebrated 
Calendar,  published  in  1711,  is  all  moonshine.  But  it  was 
Bruce  who  organized  and  directed  the  Tsar's  schools  of 
navigation,  artillery,  and  military  engineering  ;  he  presided 
over  the  Board  of  manufactures  and  of  mines ;  he  was  the 
real  inspirer  of  the  learned  correspondence  which  Peter 
made  believe  to  keep  up  with  Leibnitz,  and,  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  Treaty  of  Nystadt,  he  gave  proof  of  remarkable 
diplomatic  powers. 

They  were  all  much  alike,  ready  for  anything,  doing  many 
useful  things  indifferently  well,  and  remarkable,  especially, 
for  cunning  and  energy. 

At  Nystadt,  Bruce,  whose  success  won  him  the  title  of 
Count,  and  the  grade  of  Marshal,  had  a  colleague,  Oster- 
mann,  a  Westphalian,  whose  two  years  at  the  University  of 
Vienna  had  given  him  a  reputation  for  learning.  Campredon, 
writing  in  1725,  thus  sums  up  his  capabilities:  'He  knows 
German,  Italian  and  French,  and  thus  makes  himself  indis- 
pensable ;  otherwise,  his  principal  cleverness  consists  in  jDCtti- 
fogging  chicanery,  cunning,  and  dissimulation.'  These 
talents  sufficed, — in  a  country  where  Golovkin  was  chan- 
cellor,—  to  obtain  him  the  dignity  of  vice-chancellor,  in 
succession  to  Shafirof,  in  1723.  But  Campredon  overlooks 
one  of  his  qualities  —  a  most  remarkable  power  of  work. 
Ostermann,  to  humour  his  master's  suspicious  instincts, 
would  c\'phcr  and  dcci|:)hcr  his  own  despatches,  sitting  at 
them  whole  cla\s  and  nights,  without  ever  going  out  of  doors, 
or  taking  off  the  red  vehct  dressing-gown,  which  he  wore 
even  on  the  i8th  of  January,  1724,  when  he  ascended  the 
scaffold   which    his    predecessor   had    mounted    before  him. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES      227 

Like  that  predecessor,  he  was  pardoned,  and  ended  his  days 
in  exile. 

Beside  the  PoHsh  Jev\^,  Shafirof,  we  perceive  the  grotesque 
outh'ne  of  the  Portuguese  Jew,  Devier.  Peter  picked  him  up 
in  Holland,  where  he  was  serving  as  cabin  boy  on  board  a 
merchant  ship,  in  1697.  In  1705,  he  was  an  officer  in  the 
Guard  ;  in  1709,  he  was  Camp  Commandant.  In  171 1,  desir- 
ing to  marry  well,  he  fixed  his  choice  on  one  of  Menshikofs 
sisters,  who  was  both  old  and  ugly.  The  favourite,  looking 
on  his  request  for  this  lady's  hand  as  a  deliberate  insult, 
ordered  his  lacqueys  to  thrash  the  insolent  suitor.  Three 
days  later,  the  little  Jew  led  the  betrothed  of  his  choice  to 
the  altar.  He  had  got  out  of  the  scrape,  no  one  quite  knew 
how,  alive,  though  sorely  damaged  in  person,  and  covered 
with  blood  as  he  was,  had  carried  his  complaint  before  the 
Tsar,  who  promptly  avenged  him.  Yet,  crafty,  supple, 
humorous,  and  intensely  servile  as  he  was,  he  did  not  suc- 
ceed in  escaping  fresh  reverses.  He  was  evidently  predes- 
tined to  physical  chastisement.  In  17 18,  he  was  the  first 
holder  of  a  post, — then  a  new  one  in  St.  Petersburg, — of 
general  chief  of  police,  and,  in  this  quality,  he  had  to  accom- 
pany Peter  on  a  tour  of  inspection  through  the  streets  of  the 
capital.  A  broken-down  bridge  (Peter  had  consented  to 
have  bridges  built  over  the  numerous  canals,  which  he  had 
caused  to  be  cut  through  the  town)  stopped  the  Tsar's 
carriage.  He  alighted,  and  sent  for  materials  with  which  to 
repair  the  breach.  He  even  put  his  hand  to  the  work  him- 
self, then,  when  it  was  finished,  laying  down  his  tools,  he 
seized  his  doiibhia,  and,  without  a  word,  bestowed  a  hearty 
thrashing  on  the  chief  of  his  police.  1  his  done,  the  sove- 
reign returned  to  his  carriage,  beckoned  to  Devier  to  take 
his  place  beside  him, — '  Sadis  brat',  (sit  down,  brother), — and 
quietly  took  up  the  thread  of  a  conversation  which  had  been 
interrupted  by  the  incident.  And,  yet  again,  that  scarred 
back  was  to  feel  the  lash.  In  1727,  after  Peter's  death, 
Menshikof,  the  Jew's  unwilling  brother-in-law,  was  to  write 
his  vengeance  there  in  bloody  stripes.  At  the  foot  of  the 
decree  which  condemned  the  former  chief  of  police  to  exile, 
he  added  the  words,  '  Bit  loiontoni',  (let  him  be  knoutcd).^ 

My  readers  will    remark    the   uniform    and    monotonous 

'  Shoubinski,  Historical  Sketches,  p.  77.  Loupakof,  Monopa^^h,  in  tlie 
journal  of  the  Moscow  Polytechnic  Exhibition,  1872,  No.  99. 


228  PETER  THE  GREAT 

tendency  of  all  these  brilliant  careers,  towards  the  same  final 
ami  inevitable  crash,  in  which  some  great  historical  verdict 
and  punishment  would  always  seem  to  overshadow  mere 
personal  revenge  and  petty  spite.  Whatever  their  origin, 
whatever  the  line  they  took,  these  men,  who  none  of  them 
cared  for  law  or  gospel,  or  for  any  principle  of  rule,  save 
that  of  their  own  interest  and  ambition,  invariably  ended  by 
faUing  into  the  same  ab\-ss. 

The)-  came  from  every  corner  of  Europe.  Munich,  a 
Bavarian,  who  began  his  extraordinary  career  as  the  con- 
structor of  the  Ladoga  Canal,  elbowed  Francois  Guillemotte 
de  Villebois,  a  gentleman  from  Lower  Brittany,  who  had 
begun  his  career  in  France  as  a  smuggler.  Villebois' 
Memoirs,  which  are  full  of  exaggerations,  and  of  assertions, 
the  falsehood  of  which  have  been  clearly  proved,  are  of  little 
value,  either  as  regards  Peter's  history  or  his  own.^  Accord- 
ing to  his  story,  he  saved  the  vessel  which  carried  the  Tsar 
from  Holland  to  England  from  shipwreck.  The  Russian 
Sovereign,  '  who  loved  extraordinary  men,'  at  once  engaged 
his  services,  and,  from  the  subaltern  position  he  then  occu- 
pied, Villebois,  at  a  bound,  became  aide-de-camp,  and  captain 
in  the  navy.  I  will  not  undertake  to  follow  him  too  closely 
through  the  details  of  the  adventure  for  which,  two  years 
later,  he  was  condemned  to  the  galleys.  Having  been  sent 
by  Peter,  during  very  cold  weather,  from  Strelna  to  Kron- 
stadt,  with  a  message  to  Catherine,  and  having  drunk  a  great 
deal  of  brandy  on  the  road  to  warm  himself,  the  sudden 
change  of  temperature,  when  he  entered  the  Tsarina's  bed- 
chamber, completely  overcame  him.  At  the  sight  of  the  dis- 
ordered couch  and  of  the  beautiful  woman  stretched  upon  it, 
he  lost  his  head  and  all  his  self-control,  and  calmly  recounts 
the  consequences  of  his  frenzy,  which  even  the  Sovereign's 
screams,  and  the  presence  of  her  ladies  in  an  adjoining 
chamber,  could  not  avert.  Catherine  is  said  to  have  suffered 
severely  from  this  outrage.  As  for  Peter, — in  spite  of  his 
wife's  condition,  which  necessitated  careful  surgical  treatment, 
— he  appears  to  have  taken  the  catastrophe  very  philosophic- 
ally. 'The  brute,'  he  said,  'did  not  know  what  he  was  doing, 
so  he  is  innocent ;  but  we  must  make  an  example  of  him, — 
let  him  go  to  the  galleys  for  a  couple  of  years.' 

'  Pul)lished,  with  certain  omissions,  in  the  Revue  Retrospective,  3r(l  series, 
vol.  xviii.  p.  351,  etc.     The  manuscript  is  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  Paris. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES      229 

The  only  absolutely  certain  historical  point  about  this 
story  is  the  condemnation  to  the  galleys.  Yet  Villebois 
does  not  seem  to  have  stayed  there  more  than  six  months. 
At  the  end  of  that  time  he  was  pardoned,  married,  by  the 
Tsar's  good  offices,  to  the  daughter  of  Gllick,  the  former 
pastor  of  Marienburg,  and  thus  brought  into  close  connection 
with  the  Sovereigns.  In  Elizabeth's  reign  he  was  rear- 
admiral,  and  commandant  of  the  port  of  Kronstadt. 

Two  other  well-born  Frenchmen,  Andre  and  Adrien  de 
Brigny,  fought  beside  this  Corsair  in  the  ranks  of  the  Tsar's 
army  ;  but,  brave  as  they  were,  they  were  quite  devoid  of 
the  spirit  of  intrigue  indispensable,  in  those  days,  to  success, 
and  never  rose  to  any  prominent  position.  Englishmen, — 
perhaps  on  account  of  the  fastidiousness,  angular-minded- 
ness,  and  lack  of  adaptability  of  the  race, — were  in  a  minority 
in  the  motley  crowd  of  foreigners,  through  whose  means 
Peter  endeavoured  to  inoculate  his  subjects  with  western 
culture.  The  celebrated  Ferry,  who  entered  the  Tsar's 
service  as  an  engineer,  and  soon  left  it  in  disgust,  only  spent 
a  few  years  in  the  vicinity  of  his  comrade  in  misfortune, 
Fergusson.  This  last  had  been  engaged  to  direct  a  mathe- 
matical school,  and  never  succeeded  in  getting  one  kopeck 
paid  him  for  his  services.^  Otherwise  every  nationality  was 
represented.     There  was  even  a  negro. 

This  dusky  henchman  of  the  Tsar,  who  was  born  about 
the  year  1696,  was  carried  off  from  his  own  country  at  the 
age  of  seven  years,  and  taken  to  Constantinople,  where 
Count  Tolstoi,  the  Russian  ambassador,  purchased,  him  in 
1705.  Through  all  the  course  of  a  singularly  active  life  he 
was  haunted  by  a  painful  vision,  the  memory  of  his  beloved 
sister  Lagane,  who  had  cast  herself  into  the  sea,  and  swum 
for  a  considerable  distance  behind  the  ship  which  was  bearing 
him  from  her.  On  the  shores  of  the  Bosphorus  he  received 
the  surname  of  Ibrahim.  During  the  Tsar's  visit  to  Vilna, 
in  1707,  he  was  baptised, — Peter  standing  godfather,  and  the 
Queen  of  Poland  godmother, — and  was  thenceforward  known 
as  Abraham  Petrovitch  Mannibal.  Me  began  his  Russian 
life  as  page  to  the  Sovereign,  and,  though  he  made  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  dotibijui,  he  gained  his  master's  favour 
both  by  his  pretty  tricks,  and  his  singularly  bright  intelli- 
gence.    He  was  a  negro  prodigy.     In  17 16,  he  was  sent  to 

^  Periy,  Present  Condition  of  Russia,  p.  257,  French  edilion  (Amsterdam,  1718). 


230  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Paris  to  complete  his  education.  lie  had  already  learnt 
iJutch,  and  soon  won  himself  a  reputation  in  the  I'Vench 
arm}',  in  the  ranks  of  which  he  at  once  took  service.  Durin^^f 
the  campaign!  against  the  Spaniards,  in  1720,  in  the  course  of 
which  he  received  a  wound  on  the  head,  he  was  promoted 
lieutenant.  When  he  returned  to  Paris,  he  found  himself  a 
kind  of  celebrity,  much  sought-for  in  drawing-rooms,  where 
he  is  said  to  have  had  considerable  success,  iiut  his  serious 
tastes  soon  drew  him  away  from  frivolous  gaiety.  He 
entered  the  School  of  Engineering,  and  did  not  leave  it 
until  1726,  when  he  returned  to  Russia,  was  made  lieutenant 
in  the  Bombardier  Company,  which  Peter  once  commanded, 
and  shortly  married.  His  wife,  a  very  beautiful  woman,  the 
daughter  of  a  Greek  merchant,  brought  a  ftxir-Jiaired  child 
into  the  world.  He  forced  her  to  take  the  veil,  had  the 
child  brought  up  with  every  care,  found  her  a  husband,  gave 
her  a  fortune,  but  never  would  see  her  face.  A  very  jealous, 
violent,  loyal,  upright,  and  exceedingly  avaricious  man. 
After  Peter's  death,  he  fell  out,  like  everybody  else,  with 
Menshikof  Like  almost  everybody  else,  he  was  sent  into 
exile,  and  did  not  return  from  Siberia  till  Elizabeth's  time, 
when  he  became  a  full  general,  and  died  in  1 781,  at  the  age  of 
eighty-three  years. ^  Another  glory  has  added  itself,  since 
those  days,  to  his  name  and  history.  He  was  Poushkin's 
paternal  great-grandfather. 


As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Tsar's  circle,  whether  native  or 
foreign,  was  almost  entirely  made  up  of  '  utility  men '  and 
'  lay  figures.'  We  do  not  find  one  really  great  name,  or 
towering  figure.  The  principal  actor,  and  the  part  he 
played,  probably  took  up  so  much  room  on  the  stage,  that 
this  was  inevitable.  My  opinion  is  confirmed  by  what  I 
notice  of  the  sovereign's  relations  with  the  only  man  in  the 
contemporary  luiropean  world  of  equal  stature  with  himself, 

'  Helbig,  Riissische  Giiiist/iiigr  (Tiiliingen,  1809),  p.  135.  Bantich-K.nniicnski, 
fiiogrophical  Dutionary.  Zazyk()f,  LexiiOi^i aphicnl  Encyclo/xedia,  1S38,  vol. 
xiv.  p.  289.  Longuinif,  Russian  Archives,  1S64,  jip.  iSo,  iSl.  Op;il<nitch, 
The  First  H'i/c  of  Abraham  Hanuilhil.  A'nssinn  Aittli/uitirs,  l877i  ^'"'-  x^iii- 
p.  69.  Poushkin,  Gi'nealoi;y  of  the  J'oiishkin  and  Hanuilhil  Fatnilies,  collected 
works  (1887  edition),  vol.  v.  p.  14S. 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES      231 

with  whom  he  had  intercourse.  I  have  already  had  occasion 
to  mention  Leibnitz's  first  attempts  to  attract  the  Tsars 
attention,  and  the  hopes  he  built  on  their  success.  Yet 
these  relations, when  once  he  succeeded  in  establishing  them, 
brought  no  particular  good  fortune  to  either  party, — both 
indeed  would  seem  to  have  somewhat  lost  dignity  by  them. 

From  the  moment  when  Peter's  first  journey  through 
Germany  revealed  him  to  the  eyes  of  Europe,  Leibnitz 
seemed  possessed  with  a  perfect  monomania.  All  his  talk- 
was  of  Russia  and  of  the  Tsar.  He  was  in  a  state  of  perpetual 
excitement,  and  full  of  endless  plans,  all  more  or  less  un- 
reasonable, and  all  tending  to  the  same  object,  that  of  attrac- 
ting the  monarch's  attention,  and  winning  his  esteem.  I'his 
feverish  restlessness  may  be  very  naturally  explained.  The 
great  savant,  as  is  well-known,  claimed  Slavonic  origin,  of 
an  ancient  and  noble  nature,  common  with  that  of  the 
Polish  family  of  Lubieniecki.  He  himself  inserted,  in  an 
autobiographical  notice,  the  following  words: — 'Leibnitiorum, 
sive  Lubenecziorum,  nomen  slavonicum,  familia  in  Polonia.' 
When  he  quarrelled  with  the  town  of  Leipzig,  he  published 
the  following  protest:  —  'Let  Germany  lower  her  pride! 
The  genius  that  was  born  with  me  is  not  exclusively 
Teutonic,  it  is  the  genius  of  the  Slavonic  race,  which 
woke  in  my  person,  in  this  Fatherland  of  the  Scholastics.' 
And  to  this  distant  bond  of  consanguinity  he  appealed, 
when  he  first  addressed  Peter,  at  Torgau,  in  171 1.  '  Sire,'  he 
is  reported  to  have  said,  '  our  point  of  departure  is  a  common 
one.  Slavs,  both  of  us,  belonging  to  a  race,  the  destinies  of 
which  no  man  can  foresee, — we  are  both  of  us  the  apostles  of 
future  centuries.'  ^  This  conversation,  unfortunately,  turned 
off  to  other  subjects,  and  the  intercourse  thus  begun,  ended 
by  falling  to  a  much  less  elevated  standpoint.  In  1697, 
when  Leibnitz  was  meditating  a  scientific  plan  of  campaign 
for  Russia,  he  still  kept  at  a  dignified  level.  But  there 
was  a  great  come-down  in  this  very  year,  171 1,  when  his 
chief  anxiety  was  to  get  himself  accepted  as  the  Tsar's 
representative  at  the  Court  of  Hanover.  A  taste  foi 
diplomacy   was   one   of    his    weaknesses,   and    it   increased 

^  A  letter  from  Count  John  Lubieniecki,  lately  published  in  the  'Kraj.'a 
Polish  review,  confirms,  by  information  drawn  from  family  documents,  the  truth 
of  Leibnitz's  Polish  origin,  which  even  the  German  editors  of  the  great  savant's 
works,  Klopp,  Guhrauer,  and  Fertz,  have  not  attempted  to  deny. 

16 


232  PETER  THE  (JREAT 

with  age.  \Vc  see  him  piliiiLj  appHcation  on  appHcation, 
and  intrijjjue  on  intrii^ue, — worryinj^  Peter's  minister  at 
Vienna,  Baron  Urbich, — tcjrmenting  the  Duke  of  Wolfen- 
bi.ittel,  whose  grand -daughter  had  just  been  affianced  to 
the  Tsarevitch  Alexis.  All  he  was  able  to  get  was  the 
promise  of  a  tchin  and  of  a  pension.  The  fulfilment  of  this 
promise  was  long  in  coming,  and  at  Karlsbad,  in  1712, 
he  came  back  to  the  charge,  offering  his  good  offices 
to  reconcile  Austria  with  Russia,  a  magnetic  globe  of  the 
world,  which  he  had  caused  to  be  constructed  for  the 
Tsar,  and  an  instrument  to  be  used  in  planning  fortifica- 
tions. This  time  he  contrived  to  obtain  the  title  of  Privy 
Councillor,  and  a  gift  of  500  ducats,  which  satisfied 
him  until  17 14,  when  a  vacancy  in  the  Russian  Diplo- 
matic Service  at  Vienna  once  more  threw  him  into  a  state 
of  agitation.  In  1716,  he  was  at  the  springs  of  l^rmont,  to 
which  the  Russian  sovereign  had  betaken  himself, — with  a 
bundle  of  half-scientific,  half^political  memoranda  in  one 
hand,  and  a  wooden  apparatus  for  the  Tsar's  paralysed  arm 
in  the  other, — calling  out  about  his  pension,  which  had  never 
been  paid,  '  although  it  had  been  talked  of  all  over  Europe,' 
piling  up  expressions  of  admiration  and  proofs  of  devotion, — 
altogether  a  wonderful,  and  pitiable,  and  most  insufferable 
beggar.  Peter  strikes  me  as  having  been  almost  indifferent 
always  to  the  brightness  of  this  great  intelligence,  which 
never  seem.s  to  have  succeeded  in  coming  into  contact  with 
his  own.^  Within  a  few  months  of  the  visit  to  Pyrmont, 
Leibnitz  was  dead. 

A  considerable  share  in  the  establishment  of  the  Collegial 
Administration  of  Russia  has  been  ascribed  to  him.  A  letter 
on  which  this  organisation  was  based,  was  long  believed  to 
be  his  composition.  But  this  is  far  from  being  true.  The 
original  document,  which  is  preserved  in  the  Moscow 
archives,  is  not  in  his  handwriting,  and  other  authentic 
writings  of  his  do  not  mention  it.  Three  other  documents 
on  the  same  subject,  which  have  also  been  attributed  to 
him,  are  certainly  not  his  work.  He  never,  whatever  may 
be  said  to  the  contrary,  had  anything  to  do  with  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  at  St.  Petersburg.     Peter 

^  See  preface  of  Guerrier's  i^/cf/Z^WJ  (St.  Petersburg,  1873),  P-  23,  and  com- 
p.nrc  Foucher  ile  Careil  on  Peter  the  Great  and  Leibnitz  (Reports  of  the 
•Academic  dcs  Sciences,  Morales,  et  Politiques,'  June  1S74). 


COLLABORATORS,  FRIENDS  AND  FAVOURITES     233 

requested  another  German,  Christian  Wolff,  to  organise  and 
direct  this  institution,  but  met  with  a  curt  refusal.  Wolff 
thought  the  climate  of  St  Petersburg  too  cold,  and  the  pay 
offered  to  the  Director  of  the  Academy  altogether  too  small  ; 
besides  which,  he  was  all  for  replacing  the  Academy  by  a 
university.  'Berlin,'  he  said,  'has  an  Academy  of  Sciences, 
the  only  thing  lacking  is  the  learned  men.' ^  He  refused  to 
act  in  the  matter,  and  restricted  himself  to  recommending 
some  of  his  friends,  Bernoulli,  Biilfinger,  and  Martini,  to 
the  Tsar.  This  circle  of  hardworking,  if  not  transcendently 
brilliant,  men,  surrounded  the  cradle  of  knowledge  in  Russia, 
to  the  great  ultimate  advantage  of  the  country. 

The  plan  finally  adopted  by  Peter  for  his  Academy,  was 
based  on  a  report  written  by  an  obscure  personage  of  the 
name  of  Fick,  a  former  secretary  to  the  Duke  of  Luxemburg. 
1-eibnitz's  plans  went  much  too  far,  they  extended  beyond 
the  Tsar's  line  of  vision,  and  also,  probably,  be}'ond  the  pos- 
sibilities of  the  time  and  place.  Peter  never  adopted  any  of 
the  great  savant's  extreme  views.  Absorbed  as  he  was,  till 
1 7 16,  by  the  anxieties  connected  with  his  struggle  with 
Sweden,  all  Leibnitz's  proposals  fell  on  an  inattentive  ear. 
He  never  went  beyond  some  appearance  of  intellectual 
intimacy,  and  a  scientific  correspondence,  which  he  kept  up 
with  the  assistance  of  Bruce.  Perhaps,  too,  the  doubtful 
and  undignified  side  of  his  would-be  helper's  attitude  dis- 
pleased him,  and  put  him  on  his  guard.  The  man  of 
genius  may  have  been  utterly  hidden,  under  the  courtier, 
and  the  hungry  petitioner. 

Yet  Leibnitz,  that  great  sower  of  ideas,  did  not  pass  in 
vain  down  the  furrow  traced  by  the  great  reformer's  plough. 
The  seed  he  so  lavishly  cast  in  all  directions,  may  have  been 
carried  away  by  the  winds,  and  lost  in  space, — but,  in  due 
time,  it  reappeared.  I  see  fruitful  traces  of  it,  in  the  great 
work  accomplished,  at  a  much  later  date,  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Russian  Government,  with  regard  to  the  study  of  the 
Slavonic  languages  ;  and  Alexander  Humboldt's  researches 
on  terrestrial  magnetism,  carried  right  across  Russia,  into 
Central  Asia,  were  certainly  inspired  by  his  illustrious  pre- 
decessor. The  influence  of  such  inen  as  Leibnitz,  and  Peter 
the  Great,  is  not  measured  b}'  the  limits  of  their  earthly  life. 

*  Rriefe  von  Christian  WolIT  (.St.  Petersburg,  i860.)  Piekarski,  History  of 
Science  and  Literature  in  Russia,  vol.  i.  p.  33. 


CHAPTER    II 

THE    FEMININE    ELEMENT 

I.  The  King's  Mistress  and  the  Tsar's — Peter  a  Don  Juan — His  indifference  to 
propriety — A  daring  uncle — The  women  of  his  circle — Princess  Gaiitzin 
—  BrutaHty  and  cynicism — Besliahtyand  debauchery — Another  side  of  his 
relations  with  women. 

11.  His  marriage— Eudoxia  Lapouhin — The  honeymoon — Disagreements — 
An  ill-assorted  couple — Separation — The  cloister — The  recluse's  romance 
— ISIajor  Glebof — Lovers'  correspondence — The  investigation — The  trial 
— The  lover's  fate — ^The  mistress'  punishment — Catherine's  jealousy — 
Prison — Eudoxia's  turn  at  last. 

11.  The  earliest  favourite — Anna  Mons — Peter's  liberality — Deception — Con- 
solations— Menshikof'sgyna^ceum — The  Favourite's  sisters — TheArseniefs 
— Catherine  Vassilevska. 

V.  Maids  of  Honour — Madame  Tchernichof — Eudoxia — Marie  Matvi^ief — 
Terem  and  Harem — Marie  Hamilton — Lover  and  executioner — ^A  lesson 
in  anatomy  at  the  foot  of  the  scaffold^Catherine's  last  rival,  Marie 
Kantemir — The  wife  and  sovereign  triumphs — A  friend — The  Polish  lady 
— Madame  Sieniawska. 

V,  The  influence  of  women  on  Peter's  life,  and  his  own  influence  on  the  destiny 
of  Russian  women — Russian  feeling  in  the  seventeenth  century — Hatred 
of  women — Causes  and  effects — The  National  genius  and  foreign  influ- 
ences— Byzantium  and  the  East— The  current  of  asceticism — Family 
life — Marriage — The  Domostroi — Barbarous  haljits — When  woman  is 
sacrificed,  man  grows  vile — The  current  of  emancipation — Peter's  reforms 
— His  failures — The  importance  of  his  work — A  saviour. 


The  King :  '  Ah,  brother,  so  I  hear  you  too  have  a 
mistress  ? ' 

The  Tsar :  '  Brother,  My  ....  do  not  cost  me  much, 
but  yours  costs  you  millions  of  crowns,  which  might  be 
better  spent.' 

This  scene,  which  occurred  in  1716,  at  Copenhagen,  whither 
Peter  had  gone  to  visit  his  ally  the  King  of  Denmark,  is 
reported  in  a  grave  diplomatic  document.^  At  first  sight, 
it  would  appear  to  give  a  very  fair  idea  of  the  part  played 

^  Despatch  from  Loss  to  Manteuffcl,  Copenhagen,  I4lh  .^ug.  1716.     Sbornik, 
vol.  XX.  p.  62. 

234 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  235 

by  women  in  the  great  Reformer's  life.  He  was  too  busy, 
and  too  coarse,  to  be  a  lover  worthy  of  the  name — or  even  a 
decent  husband.  He  fixed  the  price  of  the  favours  bestowed 
on  his  soldiers  in  St.  Petersburg  at  one  kopeck  for  three  kisses ; 
and,  after  his  first  interview  with  Catherine,  the  future 
Empress,  he  enriched  her  with  a  solitary  ducat. ^  Not  that 
he  was  altogether  incapable  of  appreciating  the  more  delicate 
charm  to  be  found  in  the  society  of  the  fair  sex.  We  must 
never  forget  that  Russian  feminine  society  was  one  of  his 
creations.  The  presence  of  ladies  at  the  Sloboda  gatherings, 
was  the  first  and  most  powerful  attraction  which  drew  him 
there.  In  1693,  when  two  of  the  fair  guests,  at  ?ifcte  given 
by  Lefort,  ventured  to  leave  the  company  unobserved,  he 
sent  his  soldiers  to  bring  them  back  by  force.^  In  1701, 
when  his  care  for  his  budding  navy  kept  him  at  Voroneje,  a 
great  number  of  these  ladies  joined  him  there,  for  the  Easter 
festivities,  and  were  most  graciously  received.  When  one  or 
two  of  them  fell  ill,  he  gallantly  put  off  his  own  return  to 
Moscow.^  If  the  historical  interest  of  this  chapter  depended 
on  the  memory  of  such  gallantries,  my  respect,  both  for 
women  and  for  history,  would  lead  me  to  suppress  it.  But 
there  is  another  question.  In  such  a  character  as  Peter's, 
— so  hugely  complex,  from  the  moral  point  of  view, — surprises 
burst  on  us  at  every  turn.  As  far  as  external  matters  go, 
this  side  of  his  personality,  in  spite  of  his  sociableness, 
stamps  him  a  boor  and  a  cynical  debauchee.  He  has  no 
care  for  the  woman's  dignity,  or  his  own,  and  he  is  too 
ill-bred  to  have  the  smallest  regard  for  propriety.  Observe 
this  anecdote,  related  by  Baron  Pollnitz,  as  to  the  Sovereign's 
visit  to  Magdeburg  in  17 17:  'As  the  King  (of  Prussia)  had 
given  orders  that  he  was  to  be  treated  with  every  imaginable 
honour,  the  different  State  bodies  waited  upon  him  with 
their  presidents.  When  Cocceji,  the  brother  of  the  High 
Chancellor,  who  was  at  the  head  of  the  Regency,  went,  with 
his  colleagues,  to  pay  his  respects  to  the  Tsar,  he  found  him 
leaning  on  two  Russian  ladies,  and  caressing  them  in  the  most 
familiar  manner.  This  he  continued  to  do  during  the  whole 
time  of  Cocccji's  address.'^  And  here  is  another,  describing 
his  meeting  with  the  Duchess  of  Mecklenburg,  his  niece,  at 
Berlin.     '  The  Tsar  rushed  to  meet  the  Princess,  kissed  her 

'  Duclos'  Mi/noirs  (1839  edition),  p.  615.  '^  Korb.  p.  77. 

^  Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  part  ii.  pp.  555,  562.  ■*  Memoirs,  1791,  vol.  ii.  p.  65. 


236  PETER  THE  GREAT 

tcnderl)',  and  drawincj  her  into  an  adjoining  room,  indult^cd 
in  evcr}bo(l)''.s  jjrcscncc — even  in  that  of  the  Duke  of  Meck- 
lenburg— in  the  grossest  famiHarities.'  ^  Polhiitz,  who  declares 
that  he  received  this  information  both  from  the  King  himself, 
and  from  two  other  eye-witnesses,  adds  many  not  less  ex- 
pressive details,  as  to  the  great  man's  habitual  intercourse 
with  the  female  element  at  his  Court.  '  Princess  Galitzin 
was  his  doiira,  or  female  fool.  Everybody  vied  in  teasing 
her.  She  often  dined  with  the  Tsar,  he  would  throw  the 
remains  of  his  food  at  her  head,  and  would  make  her  stand 
up  so  tha-t  he  might  pinch  her.'  According  to  some  other 
witnesses,  the  shameful  vices  of  the  Princess  may  have 
justified,  to  some  e.xtent,  the  ignominy  of  the  treatment  to 
which  she  was  subjected.  A  letter  from  the  Prussian 
Envoy,  Mardeficld,  contains  a  curious  reference,  in  this 
connection,  to  the  French  Duchesses  and  the  pages  in  whom 
they  took  such  great  delight, — congratulating  them  on  their 
being  content  with  these  alone.  Princess  Galitzin  had  no 
page, — I  will  not  go  the  length  of  repeating  Mardefeld's 
explanation  of  how  she  supplied  this  want.'*^ 

According  to  Nartof — generally  a  fairly  reliable  witness 
as  to  the  Tsar's  private  life — Peter  was  of  a  very  amorous 
disposition,  but  the  fit  never  lasted  more  than  half  an  hour. 
He  would  not,  as  a  rule,  force  a  woman's  inclinations,  but,  as 
he  was  apt  to  cast  his  choice  on  servant  girls,  he  very  seldom 
met  with  any  resistance.  Nartof  mentions  one  rebel,  a 
laundress;  but  Bruce  relates,  in  much  more  dramatic  fashion, 
the  story  of  the  daughter  of  a  foreign  merchant  at  Moscow, 
who,  to  escape  the  sovereign's  amorous  pursuit,  was  obliged 
to  fly  her  parents'  house,  and  hide  herself  in  the  forest.^  One 
of  the  documents  published  by  Prince  Galitzin  describes 
the  Tsar's  struggle  with  a  gardener  in  Holland,  who  used  his 
rake  to  drive  away  the  monarch  from  the  neighbourhood  of 
a  garden-girl,  whose  work  he  was  interrupting. 

These  details,  to  which  I  refer  with  much  diffidence — 
believing  such  reference  to  be  part  of  a  historian's  duty — 
repugnant  as  they  are,  are  not  the  worst.  The  Tsar's  inter- 
course with  Menshikof  was  even  more  revolting.  And 
Menshikof  was  not  the  only  favourite. 

'  Memoir Sy  1791,  vol.  ii.  p.  65. 

^  Herrmann.  Fetcr  der  Giosse  und  der  Tsarnitch  AUxri,  p.  209. 

'  Memoirs,  p.  93. 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  237 


II 


Peter's  first  beginnings  were  commonplace  enough, — a  very 
early  marriage,  followed  by  some  years  of  tolerably  happy 
married  life,  and  then  a  gradual  cooling  of  mutual  affection. 
The  honeymoon  once  over,  the  husband  and  wife  saw  but 
little  of  each  other,  for  the  Tsar  was  almost  always  away. 
But  the  letters  which  passed  between  them  were  fairly  affec- 
tionate, and  the  pet  names  in  which  lovers  delight  may 
frequently  be  noticed  on  their  pages.  Lapoiishka,  (little 
hand)  was  the  sobriquet  bestowed  on  Peter,  and  willingly 
accepted  by  him.  He  was  not  to  be  the  last  person  to  bear 
it.  Two  children  came  into  the  world,  Alexander,  who  died 
in  infanc}',  and  Alexis,  born  under  an  unlucky  star.  After 
the  death  of  Nathalie  in  1694,  things  began  to  go  wrong. 
Peter,  who  then  had  been  married  for  five  years,  had  already 
contracted  some  extra-conjugal  intimacies  in  the  Sloboda,  or 
elsewhere.  But  he  had  conducted  these  affairs  with  a  certain 
amount  of  prudence.  He  was  a  dutiful  son,  and  Nathalia  a 
very  vigilant  parent.  When  her  influence  was  replaced  by  that 
of  Lefort,  two  female  forms,  members  of  the  group  of  beauties, 
—  none  of  them,  probably,  over  strict  in  conduct, — which 
surrounded  the  young  sovereign  at  the  Sloboda  gatherings, 
rose  like  stars  on  the  horizon  of  his  reign.  Both  these  ladies 
sprang  from  the  middle  class :  one  was  the  daughter  of 
Botticher,  a  goldsmith  ;  the  other,  the  child  of  a  wine-mer- 
chant, named  IVIons.  Political  disagreements  helped  to 
disturb  the  harmony  between  Peter  and  his  wife.  Kudoxia 
belonged  to  a  violently  Conservative  family  ;  her  relations, 
who  were  all  inclined  to  oppose  the  new  order  of  things, 
then  just  coming  into  existence,  soon  fell  into  disgrace,  lost 
their  positions  at  Court,  and  underwent  all  kinds  of  ill-treat- 
ment. One  of  them,  the  Tsarina's  own  brother,  who  ven- 
tured to  insult  the  favourite,  was  publicly  beaten  by  the 
Tsar ;  another  was  put  to  the  torture,  and  horrible  things 
were  reported  concerning  the  sufferings  he  endured.  Peter, 
it  was  said,  soaked  his  garments  with  spirits  of  wine,  and 
then  set  him  on  fire.  One  point,  at  all  events,  is  certain, — 
he  died  in  prison.^  When  the  Tsar  started  on  his  first 
l^uropean  tour,  Eudoxia's  father,  and  her  two  brothers,  were 
sent  into  practical  exile,  as  the  governors  of  remote  provinces. 

'  Jeliaboujski's  Memoirs,  p.  40.     Solovief,  vol.  xiv.  p.  6  (annexed  matter). 


238  PETER  THE  GREAT 

In  the  course  of  his  journc\',  Peter  ceased  correspondhig 
with  his  wife,  and  su(ldenl)%  while  he  was  in  London,  two 
of  his  confidants,  L.  K.  Nar^'shkin  and  T.  N.  Strcshnief, 
were  chart^^ed  with  a  mission  which  clearly  explained  his 
silence.  They  were  to  induce  Eudoxia  to  take  the  veil. 
This  was  the  usual  expedient,  at  that  period,  in  the  case 
of  ill-assorted  marriages,  and  Peter  would  appear  to  ha^e 
set  his  heart  upon  it.  His  intercourse  with  the  West  had 
settled  the  poor  forsaken  lad}''s  fate.  She  belonged  to  a 
very  different  world,  and  was  doomed  to  disappear. 

Yet  she  was  not  without  a  certain  amount  of  charm.  She 
may  not  have  been  pretty, — and  even  on  that  subject  it  is 
not  easy  to  come  to  any  decision.  Catherine  herself,  her 
future  rival — judging  by  the  pictures,  flattered,  no  doubt, 
which  still  exist,  and  which  made  a  very  different  impression 
uj)()n  Peter — would  appear  to  us  a  perfect  monster  of  ugli- 
ness. Eudoxia  was  certainly  not  a  fool.  When  she  re- 
appeared at  Court,  after  her  merciless  husband's  death,  she 
struck  those  who  met  her  as  a  kind-hearted  old  lady,  fairly 
well  informed  on  interesting  subjects,  and  not  altogether 
ignorant  of  State  affairs.^  Her  correspondence  with  Glebof, 
of  which  some  extracts  are  given  on  a  later  page,  prove  her 
to  have  been  a  tender,  passionate,  and  loving  woman.  Intel- 
lectually speaking,  she  resembled  the  generality  of  Muscovite 
women  of  that  period,  who  had  grown  up  within  the  Tcrcni; 
.she  was  ignorant,  simple-minded  and  superstitious.  And 
this  was  the  rock  on  which  her  fate  was  to  be  wrecked. 
Evidently  she  was  no  fit  companion  for  Peter,  incapable 
as  she  was  of  understanding  him,  following  his  ideas,  and 
sharing  his  existence. 

When  Peter  reached  Moscow,  on  his  return  from  his  great 
journey,  at  six  o'clock  on  the  evening  of  the  26th  of  August 
1698,  he  went  to  see  some  of  his  friends — Gordon,  amongst 
others — and  then  paid  a  visit  to  the  Mons  household.  But 
he  did  not  see  his  wife  for  some  days,  and  then  only  in  the 
house  of  a  third  person,  that  of  Vinnius,  the  postmaster- 
general.  The  sole  object  of  this  meeting  was  to  give  his 
verbal  confirmation  of  the  decision  already  announced 
through  Naryshkin  and  Streshnief.  Eudoxia's  answer  was 
what  her  husband  might  have  e.xi^ected — an  uncompromising 
refusal.  'What  had  she  done? '  she  demanded,  '  to  deserve 
•  Lady  Rondeau's  letters  (Letters  from  an  English  Lady),  1776. 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  239 

such  a  fate?  What  fault  had  he  to  find  with  her?'  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  she  does  not  even  appear  to  have  been  sus- 
pected of  any  participation  in  the  poHtical  intrigues  in  which 
the  Tsarevna  Sophia  and  the  Tsar's  other  sisters  were  impli- 
cated. The  revolt  of  the  Strcltsy,  which  Peter  was  then 
preparing  to  drown  in  a  sea  of  blood,  broke  out  without  the 
smallest  complicity,  moral  or  otherwise,  on  her  part.  But 
the  Tsar's  mind  was  finally  made  up.  If  he  could  find  no 
pretext,  he  was  resolved  to  do  without  one.  He  angrily  re- 
pulsed the  Patriarch's  intervention  in  favour  of  his  lawful 
wife,  and,  after  three  weeks  of  parleying,  he  cut  the  Gordian 
knot.  A  closed  carriage,  drawn  by  two  horses,  (contem- 
porary chroniclers  lay  special  stress  on  this  detail,  which,  in 
a  country  where  the  smallest  country  gentleman  never  left 
his  house  without  the  escort  of  a  whole  troop  of  horsemen, 
cruelly  aggravated  the  injustice  and  hardship  of  the  whole 
proceeding) — a  hackney  coach,  in  fact,  carried  the  unhappy 
Tsarina  to  Souzdal,  where  the  doors  of  the  nunnery  of  the 
Intercession  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  {Pokrovskil  Dievitsliyi 
Mojiastyr)  closed  upon  her. 

Innocent  though  she  was,  she  was  more  severely  treated 
than  others  who  had  been  guilty.  When  Peter  imprisoned 
her  sisters,  whose  connivance  with  the  rebels  had  been 
generally  recognised,  if  not  absolutely  established,  he  left 
each  of  them  an  income  and  a  certain  household.  He  gave 
his  wife  nothing  at  all ;  she  was  his  wife  no  longer.  She  had 
ceased  to  be  the  Tsarina  ;  she  had  lost  her  very  name.  She 
was  nothing  but  Helen,  the  nun,  with  only  one  maid  to  wait 
on  her,  and  she  was  forced  to  appeal  to  the  charity  of  her 
own  relations,  to  save  her  from  starvation.  She  writes  to  her 
brother  Abraham,  '  I  do  not  need  a  great  deal,  still  I  must 
eat ;  I  drink  neither  wine  nor  brandy,  yet  I  fain  would  be 
able  to  offer  .  .  .  .'  This  last  touch  is  a  curious  one,  elo- 
quently expressive  of  one  of  the  most  attractive  qualities  of 
the  old  patriarchal  mode  of  life  in  Russia.  Personal  suffer- 
ing was  a  misfortune  of  a  kind,  but  inability  to  show  the 
accustomed  hospitality  was  a  supreme  distress.  The  letter 
continues :  '  There  is  nothing  here,  everything  is  rotting 
away.  I  know  I  am  a  trouble  to  you,  but  what  can  I  do  ? 
As  long  as  I  live,  for  pity's  sake,  give  me  meat  and  drink  ! 
Give  garments  to  the  beggar  ! '  ^ 

'  Oustrialof,  vol.  iii.  p.  1S7,  etc.     Compare  Koib,  p.  74. 


240  PETER  THE  GREAT 

She  was  only  six-and-twcnty,  and  for  twenty  years  yet  she 
was  to  beat  her  ani^uish  and  despair  against  the  walls  of  the 
convent  cell,  where  her  life  and  passion  had  been  entombed. 
When  she  left  it,  with  her  youth  blighted  and  her  heart 
bn:)ken,  it  was  only  to  endure  a  still  more  cruel  fate. 

Twenty  years  later,  in  17 18,  the  trial  of  the  Tsarevitch 
Alexis  quickened  Peter's  inquisitorial  zeal.  It  occurred  to 
him  that  Eudoxia's  influence  might  have  been  one  of  those 
which  had  incited  his  son  to  rebellion.  Forthwith,  he  ordered 
a  descent  upon  the  nunnery,  and  an  enquiry.  The  secret 
police  drew  the  cover  blank,  as  far  as  Alexis  was  concerned, 
l)ut  this  disappointment  was  atoned  for  by  another  discovery. 
Innocent  as  she  was,  politically,  h^udoxia  was  first  suspected, 
and  then  found  guilty,  of  a  criminal  love  affair  with  iMajor 
Glebof  She  had  broken  down  at  last.  In  her  downfall  and 
her  misery,  she  had  sought  for  consolation.  Major  Glebof, 
who  had  been  sent  to  Souzdal  on  recruiting  duty,  had  been 
touched  by  her  sad  fate.  She  suffered  from  the  cold  of  her 
cell :  he  sent  her  some  furs,  and  her  deeply-grateful  letter  of 
thanks  paved  the  way  for  a  dangerous  intimacy.  He  went 
to  see  her,  to  receive  her  personal  thanks,  returned  again  and 
again,  and  so  they  fell  in  love — she,  with  an  enthusiastic, 
ardent,  and  all-absorbing  passion  ;  he,  far  more  cautiously, 
with  ;in  affection  full  of  ambiguous  reservations.  The  young 
man  was  probably  very  aml^itious  ;  he  reckoned  on  some 
distant  change  of  fortune,  thought  of  changing  his  own 
career,  and  entering  the  world  of  politics.  He  was  in  money 
ditliculties  too, — he  was  married,  and  found  his  wife  a  great 
encumbrance.  Eudoxia,  poor  lady,  would  have  had  him 
leave  the  service,  so  that  he  might  remain  near  her,  and  be- 
long to  her  alone.  She  was  always  endeavouring  to  satisfy 
his  needs,  and  relieve  the  straits  she  more  than  suspected. 
She  was  ever  ready  to  bestow  the  paltry  sums  which  she 
contrived  to  wring  from  the  parsimony  or  the  poverty  of  her 
own  relations  upon  him.  Who  could  refuse  to  help  him  ? 
She  sent  him  money.  Did  he  need  more,  and  yet  more  ? 
'  Where  thy  heart  is,  my  batko'  (a  still  more  caressing  form 
of  BaiiuHshka — Little  Father)  '  there  too  is  mine  ;  where  thy 
tongue  is,  there  is  my  head  ;  thy  will  is  alwa)-s  mine.' 

But,  bound  by  his  duties,  military  or  conjugal,  and  perhaps 
a  little  tired  of  her  already,  Batkds  visits  grew  rarer.  Then 
came  despairing  and  distracted  appeals.     Had  he  forgotten 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  241 

her  already?  Had  she  not  been  able  to  please  him?  Had 
she  not  done  enough?  Had  not  her  tears  watered  his  face, 
his  hands,  every  limb  of  his  body,  and  every  joint  of  his  feet 
and  of  his  fingers?  She  has  a  language  of  her  own,  of  the 
most  exuberantly  pathetic  description,  which,  in  the  most 
strange  and  flowery  style,  expresses  feelings  often  enough 
fantastic,  and  almost  incoherent,  but  always  throbbing  with 
evident  sincerity, — the  brilliant  colours  of  the  East,  mingled 
with  the  rustic  tints  of  her  Russian  home.  '  My  light,  my 
batioHshka,  my  soul,  my  joy,  has  the  cruel  hour  of  separation 
indeed  struck  already  ?  Rather  would  I  see  my  soul  parted 
from  my  body !  U  my  light !  how  can  I  live  on  earth 
apart  from  thee?  How  can  I  endure  existence?  My 
unhappy  heart  had  long  foreseen  this  moment :  long  have  I 
wept  over  it,  and  now  it  has  come,  and  I  suffer,  and  God 
alone  knows  how  dear  thou  art  to  me !  Why  do  I  love  thee 
so  much,  my  adored  one,  that  without  thee  life  has  no  value 
for  me  ?  Why,  O  my  soul !  art  thou  angry  with  me  ? 
Yes,  so  angry  that  thou  dost  not  write  to  me.  At  least,  O 
my  heart !  wear  the  ring  I  gave  thee,  and  love  me  a  little — 
just  a  little !  I  have  had  another  ring  like  it  made  for 
myself.  But  what !  it  is  by  thy  will  that  we  are  parted  ? 
Ah  !  it  is  long  since  I  began  to  see  a  change  in  thy  love. 
But  why,  O  my  Batko  !  why  comest  thou  not  to  see  me  ? 
Has  anything  happened  to  thee  .'*  Has  any  one  spoken  evil 
of  me  to  thee  ?  O  my  friend  !  O  my  light !  my  lioubonka ' 
(from  Lioubit,  to  cherish),  'have  pity  on  me  !  Have  pity  on 
me,  O  my  lord  !  and  come  to  see  me  to-morrow !  O  my 
whole  world,  my  adored  one,  my  lapoushka '  (it  will  be 
recollected  that  she  had  originally  applied  this  name  to 
another  person),  'answer  me,  let  me  not  die  of  grief!  I 
have  sent  thee  a  cravat ;  wear  it,  O  my  soul  I — thou  wilt  not 
wear  anything  that  I  send  thee  ;  is  that  a  sign  that  I  cannot 
please  thee?  But  forget  thy  love, — I  cannot  do  it!  I 
cannot  live  without  thee  ! ' 

But  Batko  continues  hard-hearted,  and  her  complaints 
grow  more  and  more  distracted.  They  are  like  the 
continuous  monotonous  cry  of  a  wounded  creature. 

'  Who  has  done  me  this  wrong,  poor  wretch  that  I  am  ! 
who  has  stolen  my  treasure?  who  has  shut  out  the  light 
from  my  eyes  ?  for  whom  hast  thou  forsaken  me .-'  to  whom 
hast  thou  abandoned  me?  how  is  it  that  thou  hast  no  pity 


242  PETER  THE  GREAT 

for  me?  Can  it  be  that  thou  wilt  never  return  to  me? 
Who  has  parted  thee  from  me,  unhappy  that  I  am  ?  What 
have  I  clone  to  thy  wife?  how  have  I  harmed  her?  how 
have  I  offended  \-ou  ?  Wherefore,  O  dear  soul !  didst  thou 
not  tell  me  how  I  had  displeased  thy  wife  ?  and  why  didst 
thou  listen  to  her?  Why  hast  thou  forsaken  me? 
Assuredly  I  would  never  have  separated  thee  from  thy  wife. 
O  my  light!  how  can  I  live  without  thee?  how  can  I 
remain  in  this  world  ?  Why  hast  thou  caused  me  this 
anr^uish?  Have  I  been  guilty  without  knowing  it?  Why 
didst  thou  not  tell  me  of  my  fault?  Why  not  have  struck 
me,  to  punish  me, — chastised  me  in  any  way,  for  this  fault  I 
have  committed  in  my  ignorance  ?  In  God's  name,  do  not 
forsake  me  !     Come  to  me  !  without  thee  I  shall  die  ! ' 

And  some  days  later  : — 

'  W^hy  am  I  not  dead  ?  Would  that  thou  hadst  buried 
me  with  thy  own  hands  !  Forgive,  forgive  me,  O  my  soul  I 
do  not  let  me  die!  I  will  kill  myself!  Send  me,  O  my 
heart !  send  me  the  waistcoat  thou  hast  often  worn.  Why 
hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?  Send  me  a  morsel  of  bread  into 
which  thou  hast  bitten  with  thy  teeth  I  How  utterly  hast 
thou  forsaken  me  !  what  have  I  done  to  displease  thee,  that 
thou  shouldst  leave  me  thus,  orphaned,  broken-hearted  .  .  .  ' 

Nine  of  these  letters  were  produced  at  the  enquiry.  They 
were  not  written  by  Eudoxia  herself  She  had  dictated 
them  to  a  nun  named  Kaptclina,  her  confidant,  who  added 
postcripts,  in  which  she  endeavoured  to  induce  the  faithless 
swain  to  take  pity  on  the  sufferings  of  the  Matonshka. 

But  the  imprudent  lover  had  endorsed  every  one  of  them, 
*  Letter  from  the  Tsarina  Eudoxia.'  T  he  two  rings  were  also 
found  in  the  possession  of  the  guilty  couple.  The 
depositions  of  the  nuns  and  the  servants  in  the  Convent, 
many  of  whom  were  examined,  were  quite  conclusive. 
Glebof  had  constantly  visited  the  Tsarina,  both  in  the  day- 
time and  at  night  ;  they  had  frequently  kissed  each  other  in 
the  presence  of  witnesses,  and  were  often  alone  together  for 
many  hours.     Finally  Eudoxia  confessed  cvcr\-thing. 

And  Glebof?  I'he  popular  legend  describes  him  as 
having  behaved  like  a  hero,  deliberately,  in  the  midst  of 
the  most  frightful  tortures,  taking  ever)'  other  sort  of  crime 
upon  his  shoulders,  and  even  confessing  imaginary  faults, 
while  steadily  refusing  to  admit  an\-thing  that  could  sully 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  243 

Eudoxia's  honour.^  But  the  minutes  of  the  enquiry,  which 
are  still  preserved  in  the  Moscow  archives,  prove  the  exact 
contrary.^  Glebof  was  dumb  as  to  all  the  other  matters 
whereof  he  was  accused.  The  onl}'  absolute  confession  he 
seems  to  have  made  concerned  this  love  affair,  which  dated 
eight  years  back.     Eudoxia  was  then  38  years  old. 

I  hasten  to  say  that  none  of  these  depositions  nor 
confessions  really  prove  anything.  Skorniakof-Pissaref,  the 
Examining  Judge  sent  by  Peter  to  Souzdal,  caused  fifty 
nuns,  some  of  whom  died  under  the  lash,  to  be  flogged. 
They  said  anything  and  everything  he  desired.  Eudoxia 
and  Glebof  were  both  of  them  examined  in  the  question 
chamber.  Such  frightful  tortures  were  inflicted  on  the 
unfortunate  officer  that  it  was  decided  to  put  him  to  death 
on  the  i6-27th  of  March,  17 18, — the  doctors  declaring 
they  could  not  prolong  his  life  for  more  than  twenty-four 
hours.^  A  story  was  current,  that  the  poor  wretch  had  been 
imprisoned  in  a  dungeon,  the  floor  of  which  was  covered 
with  sharp  spikes,  made  of  very  hard  wood,  on  which  he  was 
forced  to  walk  barefoot.  The  final  form  of  execution  selected 
by  Peter  was  impalement.  As  there  were  twenty  degrees  of 
frost,  the  unhappy  man  was  wrapped  in  a  fur  pelisse,  and 
given  fur  boots,  and  a  warm  cap,  so  as  to  make  his  torture 
last  as  long  as  possible.  It  began  at  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  and  continued  till  half-past  seven  o'clock  on  the 
evening  of  the  following  day.^  A  story,  which  does  not 
appear  altogether  credible,  relates  that  when  the  victim  had 
suffered  several  hours,  Peter  approached,  and  endeavoured 
to  draw  fresh  confessions  from  him.  The  only  answer  Glebof 
vouchsafed,  was  to  spit  in  the  monarch's  face.^ 

Eudoxia  escaped  with  her  life,  but  she  was  placed  in  a 

^  Allainval's  Anecdotes,  1745,  p.  31.  The  reports  of  the  foreiqii  diplomats 
resident  at  Moscow,  which  echo  current  opinion,  are  all  in  the  same  sense. 
Herrmann,  Peler  der  Grosse  nttd  der  Tsa/eTttch  Alexei,  pp.  135  and  207.  Des- 
patch from  De  Bie  to  Fagel,  March  28.  1718  (Archives  at  the  Hague). 
Mc'iiioir'-s  et  Documents  (French  Foreign  Office),  vol.  i.  p.  129,  etc.  Manuscript 
Reports  in  the  Gothn  Library,  etc.,  etc. 

"^  Partially  published  in  Ous'.rialof,  vol   vi.  p.  469,  etc. 

'  rj)espatch  quoted  by  De  Die. 

*  Auijiihrliche  Beschreibiin^  der  in  der  Haupstadt  Moscow  .  .  .  volhoj^enen 
grossen  Execution  (Riga,  17 18).  See  also  the  romantic  story  of  Eudoxia  and 
Glebof,  as  told  by  -Sit'-mievski,  Eudoxia  Laponhin,  in  the  '  Messager  Russe,' 
l8s9,  vol.  xxi.  pp.  219-265.  Also,  i860,  vol.  xx.x.  pp.  559-599 ;  1859,  vol. 
xxiii.  pp.  299-300,  Study  by  Snic'i^ire}. 

'  Dolgoroukof,  vol.  i.  p.  32.     Lady  Rondeau,  p.  32. 


244  PETER  THE  GREAT 

still  more  lonci}-  nunnery,  on  the  sliorcs  of  Lake  Ladofja, 
where  she  was  yet  more  closely  watched.  Accordin<;  to 
one  authority,  she  was  condemned,  before  bein<^  sent  to 
her  new  prison,  to  be  whipped,  by  a  Court  of  Bishops, 
Archimandrites,  and  other  ecclesiastics,  and  this  sentence 
was  carried  out  by  two  monks,  in  presence  of  the  whole 
Chapter.^ 

W  hat  can  have  inspired  Peter  to  brinc^  his  consort  and  her 
lover  to  trial,  and  more  especially,  to  treat  them  with  such 
ferocity  ?  We  cannot  suppose  him  to  have  been  jealous  of 
the  wife  he  had  repudiated  and  forgotten,  and  left  to  grow 
old  in  the  loneliness  of  her  convent.  And  his  habitual 
indulgence  for  weaknesses  of  that  particular  nature, — 
especially  in  cases  which  bore  no  reference  to  political 
matters, — is  well  known.  Now  political  matters  do  not 
appear  to  have  had  the  slightest  connection  with  this 
business.  Eudoxia's  correspondence  with  her  lover,  which 
never  refers  to  anything  but  her  love,  is  a  clear  proof  of 
their  perfect  innocence  in  this  respect.  The  Ex-Tsarina 
had  indeed  allowed  herself  to  be  tempted  to  resum.e  her 
worldly  garb,  and  had  even  permitted  those  about  her  to 
encourage  her  in  the  hope  of  a  return,  more  or  less  distant, 
to  her  former  splendours.  But  there  was  never  more  than  a 
hope  of  this,  in  any  quarter.-  May  not  Eudoxia  have  been 
the  victim  of  the  jealousy  and  hatred  of  a  third  person  ? 
Let  us  pass  over  the  next  seven  years.  Peter  died  at  last, 
and  this  event,  instead  of  being  a  happy  one  for  the 
prisoner,  was  the  signal  for  a  fresh  aggravation  of  her  cruel 
fate.  She  was  dragged  from  her  convent,  taken  to  the 
fortress  of  Schlusselburg,  and  there  cast  into  a  subterranean 
dungeon,  which  swarmed  with  rats.  She  fell  ill,  and  the 
only  person  she  had  to  wait  on  her,  was  an  old  dwarf 
woman,  herself  in  need  of  service  and  assistance.  Thus  two 
years  passed.  Who  did  this  thing  ?  Catherine  I.,  the 
reigning  Sovereign.  And  here,  perhaps,  we  may  find  the 
answer  to  my  question  regarding  Peter.  At  the  end  of  the 
two  years,  a  change  came.  Suddenly,  as  though  in  a 
dream,  the  door  of  the  dungeon  was  thrown  open,  gentlemen 

'  French  Foreign  Office,  Alhnoires  et  Documents,  vol.  i.  p.  129. 

-  De  15ic  tides  indeed  mention  a  plot  and  a  cyphered  correspondence,  the  key 
to  which  (jlcbof  refused  to  give  up  ;  Ijut  liiis  is  a  mere  repetition  of  stories  current 
at  the  time. 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  245 

in  court  dress  appeared  upon  the  threshold,  and  bowing  to 
the  ground,  requested  the  captive  to  follow  them.  Thus  led, 
she  entered  a  luxurious  apartment,  prepared,  so  they 
informed  her,  for  her  special  use,  in  the  house  of  the 
Commandant  of  the  Fortress.  A  bed,  with  sheets  of  the 
finest  Dutch  linen,  replaced  the  damp  straw  pallet  she  had 
lately  occupied  ;  the  walls  were  hung  with  splendid  stuffs, 
the  table  was  covered  with  gold  plate,  10,000  roubles  awaited 
her  in  a  casket,  courtiers  stood  in  her  antechamber 
carriages  and  horses  were  at  her  orders.  What  did  it  mean? 
It  meant  that  Catherine  I.  was  dead,  and  that  the  new  Tsar 
Peter  II.,  was  the  son  of  Alexis,  and  the  grandson  of 
Kudoxia.  The  poor  grandmother,  whose  hair  had  whitened 
in  her  prison,  went  to  Moscow  to  be  present  at  the 
Coronation  of  the  new  monarch.  There  she  took  precedence 
of  all  the  other  princesses  ;  she  was  surrounded  with  pomp, 
and  treated  with  the  deepest  consideration  and  respect.  But 
it  was  all  too  late  ;  her  life  was  broken,  and  of  her  own  free 
will,  she  went  back  to  her  nunnery.  She  ended  her  days,  in 
173  I,  in  the  Noi'odievitshyi  jMoHas()'r,  that  refuge  for  great 
misfortunes,  where  Sophia  spent  her  life  afier  the  day  which 
saw  all  her  ambitions  crumble  into  dust.  According  to 
another  tradition,  Eudoxia  spent  her  last  years  in  the  family 
residence  of  the  Lapouhin,  at  S^rebrianoie,  but  even  there, 
she  had  access,  by  a  gallery,  to  the  neighbouring  cloister  of 
St.  George.^  Her  tomb  is  in  the  Moscow  Monastery,  and 
her  memory  lives  even  in  the  present  day,  in  the  popular 
legends  and  songs  of  the  country.-  In  spite  of  all  her  down- 
fall and  disgrace,  she  has  kept  the  sorrowful  sympath\-  of 
those  humble  ones  of  the  earth  who  are  all  too  well 
acquainted  with  bitter  suffering. 


HI 

The  moment  Eudoxia  was  safely  interned  in  her  convent, 
Peter  installed  his  first  '  maitresse  en  titre.'  This  positon 
was  occupied  by  Anna  Mons,  or  Monst,  or  Munst, — Doniicclla 
Mo7isui?ia,  as   Korb  calls  her.     Her  father,  before  he  came 

*  Russian  Archives,  1873,  p.  652. 

^  Memohes  of  the  '  Acadimie  des  Sciencet^  at  St.  Petersburg,  1S64,  vol.  v.  book 
ii.  p.  206  (PodsossoQ. 


346  I'ETER  THE  GREAT 

to  Moscow,  had  been  a  wine  merchant,  or,  as  others  say,  a 
jeweller,  at  Mindcn.  The  family,  therefore,  was  really  of 
W'estphalian  orij^in,  although,  in  later  years,  it  tried  to  boast 
of  Flemish  ancestors,  and  affixed  the  particle  '  de  '  before 
the  name  it  added  to  its  original  appellation, — '  Mons,'  or 
'  Moens,  de  la  Croix.'^  The  young  lady,  who  began  her  career 
as  Lefort's  mistress,  soon  forsook  the  favourite  for  his  master. 
She  accompanied  the  Sovereign  even  on  occasions  of  public 
ceremonial.  Neither  he  nor  she  shrank  fr(jm  attracting 
attention.  When  he  stood  godfather  to  the  Danish  envoy's 
son,  he  desired  that  she  should  be  godmother.^  He  had  a 
fine  house  built  for  her  in  the  S/oboda,  and  the  dreary 
archives  of  the  Preobrajcnski  Prikas  bear  witness  to  the 
too  loudly  expressed  astonishment  of  a  German  tailor 
named  Flank,  concerning  the  glories  of  a  bedroom  which 
was  the  chief  ornament  of  the  dwelling,  and  in  which  the 
Tsar,  as  it  was  well  known,  frequently  appeared.^  In  1703, 
somewhat  unwillingly  and  remorsefully  it  must  be  said,  he 
endowed  the  lady  with  a  property  of  considerable  extent, 
called  Doubino,  in  the  district  of  Kozielsk.  She  was  a  most 
barefaced  beggar,  perpetually  soliciting  the  somewhat  un- 
ready generosity  of  the  Sovereign,  in  a  succession  of  notes, 
written  by  a  secretary,  to  which  she  added  postscripts 
in  bad  German.  She  backs  one  of  these  requests  by  calling 
on  the  name  of  a  person  whose  good  offices  she  could  hardly 
have  expected.  '  For  the  love  of  your  son,  Alexis  I'etro- 
vitch,  give  me  that  estate!'  *  Now,  Alexis,  as  my  readers  will 
recollect,  was  Eudoxia's  child.  Her  letters  were  occasionally 
accompanied  by  very  modest  gifts.  Thus  she  sent  her  lover, 
then  detained  at  the  siege  of  Azof,  four  lemons  and  as  many 
oranges.  He  had  serious  thoughts  of  marrying  her,  even 
although  he  was  carrying  on  doubtful  relations  with  one  of 
her  friends,  Helen  Fademrecht,  from  whom  he  received 
letters,  too,  addressed, '  To  my  Universe, — to  my  little  darling 
Sun, — my  beloved,  with  black  eyes  and  eyebrows  of  the 
same  colour.'  The  Mons  affair — a  very  commonplace  one, 
— lasted  till  1703,  and  closed  in  an  equally  commonplace 
fashion.     The  Saxon  Envoy  Konigseck,  who  had  only  lately 

'  Mordovtsef,  Russian  Women  (St.  Petersburg),  p.  3,  portfolio  No.  Ixxxvi. 
in  Peter's  'Cabinet.'  The  documents  of  the  Mindcn  Municipality  here  pre- 
served give  various  spellings  of  tlie  name. 

'■*  Korb,  p.  84.  '  Nos.  1 243,  1 258. 

*  See  extracts  from  this  correspondence  in  Mordovtsefs  work. 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  247 

arrived  at  the  Tsar's  Court,  was  accidentally  drowned,  at  the 
beginning  of  a  campaign.  In  his  pockets  certain  notes  were 
found,  the  writing  and  the  style  of  which,  Peter  easily  recog- 
nised. He  was  simple-minded  enough  to  lose  his  temper, 
the  Doynicella  Monsiana  went  to  prison,  and  only  came  out 
by  dint  of  urgent  prayers,  and  cunning  wiles.  On  recovering 
her  liberty  she  was  forced  to  content  herself  with  becoming 
the  mistress  of  Keyserling,  the  Prussian  Envoy,  who  ended 
by  marrying  her.  She  had  a  taste  for  diplomacy,  and  not 
sufficient  prudence  to  keep  herself  out  of  difficulties.  She 
found  herself  back  in  prison,  and  only  contrived  to  save  a 
few  poor  remnants  of  the  monarch's  former  liberality. 
Amongst  these  was  his  portrait,  with  which  she  sharply  refused 
to  part,  on  account — some  people  hinted — of  the  diamonds 
in  which  it  was  framed.  Peter  kept  his  grudge  against 
her  for  years.  The  enquiry  in  connection  with  this  sorry 
business  was  still  going  on  in  1707,  and  Romodanovski 
had  thirty  prisoners  implicated  in  it — how,  neither  they  nor 
he  could  fairly  explain, — under  lock  and  key.  A  year  later, 
Keyserling,  who  had  already  married  the  lady,  took  advan- 
tage of  a  moment  of  good  humour  to  intercede  with  the 
Tsar  in  favour  of  one  of  her  brothers,  who  was  petitioning 
for  employment.  His  remarks  were  very  ill-received.  Peter 
cut  him  short  roughly,  and  spoke  his  mind  with  his 
usual  frankness.  '1  brought  up  Mons  for  myself;  I  meant 
to  marry  her ;  you  have  seduced  her,  and  you  can  keep  her. 
liut  never  dare  to  speak  to  me  of  her  or  of  her  relations 
again.'      When   the   Prussian   would   have  persisted,    Men- 

shikof  intervened  :  '  Your  Mons  is  a ;  she  has  been  my 

mistress,  and  yours,  and  every  one's.  Don't  let  us  hear  any 
more  about  her.'  This  scene  took  place,  it  is  only  fair  to  say, 
after  supper,  at  an  entertainment  given  by  a  Polish  nobleman 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Lublin.  It  ended  unpleasantly  for 
Keyserling.  Peter  and  Menshikof  fell  on  him  with  their 
fists,  turned  him  out  of  the  room,  and  threw  him  down  stairs, 
lie  made  a  formal  complaint,  but  the  business  was  decided 
against  him,  and  ended  with  excuses, — which  he  was  obliged 
to  make.^ 

^  Sbornik,  vol.  xxxix.  p.  410  (Whitworth's  Despatches).  Siemievski,  The 
Et/tpre^s  Catherine  {?>\..  Petersburg,  1884),  p.  33,  etc.  (Keyscrling's  Desp;itclies). 
Essipof,  Life  of  Menshikof  (Russian  Archives,  1875).  Kostomarof,  Knssian 
History  told  in  Biographies  (St.  Petersburg,  1S81),  vob  ii.  p.  618.  Oushiali)f, 
vol.  iv.  p.  145,  etc.     Soluvief,  vol.  xvi.  p.  67.     Lady  Rondeau,  p.   11.     Kusto- 

17 


248  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Madame  Keyserling,  who  became  a  widow  in  171 1,  in- 
spired a  frosli  passion — the  admirer,  this  time,  was  a  Swedish 
officer  named  Miller, — but  she  died  only  a  few  years  after 
her  husband.^ 

Peter  may  have  been  a  rancorous,  but  he  was  b\-  no  means 
an  inconsolable  lover.  Menshikof,  who  took  Lefort's  place  in 
his  intimate  circle,  was  as  skilful  as  his  predecessor  in  supply- 
ing his  master  with  consolations.  Like  Lefort,  he  had  his 
own  female  following — his  two  sisters,  Marie  and  Anne, 
whom  he  had  placed  in  the  household  of  Peter's  favourite  sister 
Nathalia,  and  two  }-oung  ladies,  Daria  and  Barbara  Arsenief, 
who  also  belonged  to  the  Tsarevna's  Court,  which  Court 
bore  a  strong  resemblance  to  a  harem.  A  daughter  of  the 
Tolstoif  family  completed  this  group,  and,  about  1703, 
a  sixth  recruit  appeared,  who  was  to  take  a  place  apart  in 
the  Sovereign's  life,  and  give  quite  an  unexpected  turn  to 
the  hitherto  trivial  history  of  his  love  affairs.  The  real  name 
of  this  young  girl  is  as  uncertain  as  her  origin.  In  the  first 
authentic  documents  which  mention  her,  she  is  sometimes 
called  Catherine  Troubatshof,  sometimes  Catherine  Vassi- 
levska,  and  sometimes  Catherine  Mihailof.  Menshikof  took 
her  for  his  mistress,  while,  at  the  same  time,  he  made  love 
to  Daria  Arsenief,  whose  sister  had  attracted  Peter's  atten- 
tion. His  plan  was  to  make  Barbara  Tsarina,  and  himself 
thus  become  the  Tsar's  brother-in-law.  With  this  object, 
he  gave  himself  much  trouble  about  the  education  of  the 
new  favourite.  '  For  heaven's  sake,'  he  wrote  to  Daria, 
'  induce  your  sister  to  study  both  Russian  and  German 
closely,  she  has  no  time  to  lose.'  Villebois  describes 
Barbara  as  a  plain  woman,  full  of  wit,  and  as  spiteful  as 
she  was  clever.  He  thus  relates  the  beginning  of  her  inter- 
course with  the  Tsar,  l^eter,  who  was  dining  with  her  and 
her  companions,  thus  addressed  her  :  '  Thou  art  so  ugly,  my 
poor  Barbara,  that  I  do  not  believe  any  one  has  ever  thought 
of  making  love  to  thee.  But  strange  exploits  are  those 
which  please  me  best,  and  I  will  not  have  thee  die  without 
— '  and  forthwith  he  suited  the  action  to  the  word.  The 
loose  morals  of  the  Tsar's  circle  give  us  reason  to  believe  in  the 
truth  of  the  story.     I  have  already  indicated  the  ambiguous 

marof  comes  nearest  the  truth,  though  he  is  mistaken  as  to  the  date  of  Konig- 
seck's  death.  (See  Peters  letter  to  Apraxin,  April  I7lh,  1703,  in  lVrilin_i;s  attd 
CorrespondcHCi;,  vol.  ii.  p.  152.)  '  biemievski,  ibid.  p.  60. 


THE  FEMIxMNE  ELEMENT  249 

nature  of  the  intercourse  between  these  lovers  and  their 
mistresses — the  strange  confusion  and  community  of  senti- 
ments and  intimate  relations.  Peter  and  Menshikof  per- 
petually appear  as  taking  each  other's  place,  or  cumulating 
rights  which  might  have  been  held  the  exclusive  property  of 
one  or  of  the  other.  During  their  absences,  this  condition  of 
things  is  perpetuated  in  collective  messages,  which  carry 
tender  recollections  and  endearing  words,  pell-mell,  from  one 
group  to  the  other,  frequently  accompanied  by  presents, — 
cravats,  shirts,  and  dressing-gowns,  made  by  the  fair  ladies' 
own  hands.  Daria  Arsenief  adds  to  her  signature  the  words 
'  the  Fool.'  Anna  Menshikof  adds,  'the  very  thin  one.'  As 
for  C'atherine,  she  signs,  in  1705,  '  with  two  others,'  a  sentence 
explained  by  a  passage  in  the  common  letter,  '  Peter  and 
Paul  salute  you,  and  ask  your  blessing.'  Peter  and  Paul 
were  the  two  children  she  had  already  borne  the  Tsar.  In 
1706,  the  Tsar  gathered  the  whole  gay  company  at  Narva, 
where  the  Easter  festival  was  spent,  and  then  brought  the 
ladies  back  with  him  to  St  Petersburg,  where,  as  he  wrote  to 
Menshikof,  '  he  was  in  paradise,  in  such  fair  company.'  But 
Menshikof,  who  was  kept  in  the  south  with  the  army,  and 
found  it  very  dull,  would  gladly  have  shared  that  paradise. 
He  wrote  to  Peter,  that  as,  when  he  left  St  Petersburg,  he 
could  not  well  travel  about  with  such  a  company  of  ladies, 
he  might  as  well  send  them  to  his  friend.  Rut  Peter  decided 
otherwise.  He  brought  the  whole  party  in  his  train  from  St 
Petersburg  to  Smolensk,  and  from  Smolensk  to  Kief,  and  it 
was  not  until  the  month  of  AugU5.t  that  he  suffered  his 
favourite  to  meet  him  in  the  latter  town,  where  he  had  a 
surprise  in  store  for  him.  Menshikof  had  promised  marriage 
to  Daria  Arsenief,  and  he  was  now  to  keep  that  engagement, 
— Peter  having  decided,  on  his  part,  to  carry  out,  at  a  future 
date,  his  own  promise  to  the  mother  of  the  '  two  others.'  The 
favourite  was  expected  to  set  him  an  example,  and  was  not 
to  leave  Kief  until  the  deed  was  done.  When  the  ceremony 
was  over,  the  common  treasure  was  divided.  Peter  took  his 
way  back  to  St  Petersburg  with  Catherine  Vassilevska  and 
Anisia  TolstoY.  Menshikof  was  left  at  Kief  with  his  wife,  his 
sister  Anne,  and  his  sister-in-law  Barbara.^ 

^  Essipof,  p,  244,  etc.,  Peter  the  Great's  IVriiings  and  Corrcspoudaicc,  vol.  iii, 
pp.  283,  322,  540,  770,  816,  1058.     Solovief,  vol.  xvi.  p.  68. 


250  PETER  THE  GREAT 


IV 

A  separate  chapter  of  this  work  is  devoted  to  Catherine 
Vassilevska.  She  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  legion  of 
chance  mistresses,  who  flit  across  the  personal  history  of 
Peter  the  Great.  Even  after  her  marriage,  and  her  elevation 
to  the  throne,  she  had  a  daily  struggle  with  rivals,  who 
sometimes  threatened  her  very  existence,  as  wife  and 
sovereign.  This  occurred  in  1706,  during  Peter's  visit  to 
Hamburg,  when,  a  Lutheran  pastor  having  refused  to 
sacrifice  his  daughter  to  the  Tsar's  passion,  the  monarch  pro- 
mised to  repudiate  Catherine,  and  marry  the  girl.  Shafirof, 
it  is  said,  actually  received  orders  to  prepare  the  wedding 
contract.  But,  unluckily  for  herself,  the  too  confiding  maiden 
consented  to  grant  her  admirer  an  instalment  on  account  of 
the  promised  wedding  joys,  before  the  h)'meneal  torch  was 
actually  lighted, — and  was  shortly  dismissed,  with  a  gift  of  a 
thousand  ducats.^  The  heroine  of  another  and  less  passing 
fancy  is  also  currently  believed  to  have  approached  very  near 
to  definite  triumph,  and  corresponding  rank.  Eudoxia 
Kjevski  was  the  daughter  of  one  of  Peter  s  earliest  partizans, 
who,  in  spite  of  that  fact,  came  of  a  family  which  claimed  the 
same  ancient  and  illustrious  origin  as  the  Tatishtchef,  and 
was  devotedly  attached  to  Sophia  and  her  interests.  The  girl 
had  been  the  Tsar's  mistress  before  she  was  fifteen.  At  six- 
teen, Peter  married  her  to  Tchernishof,  an  officer  seeking 
advancement,  but  this  did  not  interrupt  his  own  relations  with 
her.  She  had  four  daughters  and  three  sons  by  him.  He 
passed,  at  all  events,  as  their  father,  but  the  mother's  loose  con- 
duct rendered  the  paternity  of  her  children  more  than  doubt- 
ful, and  compromised  her  own  chances  with  the  Tsar.  Her 
crowning  feat,  so  the  scandal-mongers  averred,  was  to  call 
forth  the  celebrated  order  given  to  her  husband  by  her  lover, — 
who  had  fallen  ill,  and  was  inclined  to  ascribe  his  sufferings  to 
her, — '  to  go  and  flog  Eudoxia.'  The  Tsar's  usual  name  for 
her  was  'Avdotia  boi  baba'  (Eudo.xia  'the  fighter'.)  Her 
mother  was  the  famous  '  Princess- Abbess."^ 

Her  case,  if  it  were  an  isolated  one,  would  be  hardly  worth 
relating.     Unluckily, — and  here  comes  in  the  interest,  sad  as 

'  Report  by  Count   Rabutin,   Envoy  of   llic    German    Emperor,    Rilsching^ 
Magazin,  vol.  xi.  p.  490.  -  Dolgoroukof's  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  175. 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  251 

it  is,  of  this  particular  page  of  history, — she  is  a  typical  figure, 
representing  a  period,  and  a  state  of  society.  Her  story  was 
much  the  same  as  that  of  Maria  Matvieief,  the  daughter  of 
one  of  the  greatest  noblemen  of  that  time,  who,  as  I  have 
already  said,  ultimately  became  the  wife  of  Roumiantsof. 
More  beautiful  than  Eudoxia  Rjevski,  and  more  loveable, 
full  of  wit  and  charm  of  every  kind,  Maria  Matvieief,  like 
her,  became  one  of  the  Empress's  maids-of-honour.  The 
position,  such  an  honoured  one  in  our  days,  almost  amounted, 
at  that  time,  to  a  vocation  of  shame.  Catherine's  female 
associates  had  replaced  Nathalia's  feminine  circle.  The 
tereni  no  longer  existed  in  the  Imperial  palaces ;  the  Jiaycni 
remained,  a  legacy  from  the  Oriental  past.  Complaisant 
husbands  had  taken  the  place  of  complaisant  fathers.  Shortly 
after  Peter's  death,  Maria  Roumiantsof  bore  a  son,  who 
was  to  be  the  hero  of  the  next  great  reign,  the  victorious 
General  of  Catherine  II., — recognised  by  every  one  as  the 
son  of  the  great  Tsar. 

Peter's  illegitimate  posterity  was  almost  as  numerous  as 
that  of  Louis  XIV.  It  may,  indeed,  have  been  somewhat 
exaggerated  ;  there  is  no  historical  certainty,  for  instance, 
of  the  illegitimacy  of  Madame  Strogonof's  three  sons.  The 
mother,  a  daughter  of  the  house  of  Novossiltsof,  would 
appear  to  have  been  no  more  to  the  Tsar  than  an 
entertaining,  and  hard-drinking,  boon  companion. 

The  usual  story  begins  again  with  another  maid  of  honour, 
Mary  Hamilton.  There  is  no  truth  whatever,  I  need  hardly 
say,  in  the  sentimental  stories  in  which  certain  writers  have 
indulged  respecting  this  lady.  She  seems  to  have  been  a 
somewhat  commonplace  being,  and  Peter's  particular  style 
of  love-making  would  not  appear  to  have  been  unsuited  to 
her.  My  readers  are  aware  that  a  branch  of  the  great 
Scotch  family  of  Hamilton,  the  rival  of  the  house  of 
Douglas,  had  settled  in  Russia  at  a  period  considerably 
preceding  the  emigration  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
dating  from  the  reign  of  Ivan  the  Terrible.  This  branch, 
which  had  married  into  several  of  the  great  families  of  the 
country,  was  almost  completely  Russianised,  before  the 
)-oung  Tsar's  accession.  Mary  Hamilton,  the  grand- 
daughter of  Artamon  Matvieief,  Nathalia  Naryshkin's 
adopted  father,  went  to  Court,  like  other  girls  of  her  class, 
and,   being   a   pretty   girl,  she   shared   the   usual    fate.     But 


252  PETE^  THE  GREAT 

Peter's  passion  for  her  was  of  the  most  ephemeral  descrip- 
tion. He  forsook  her  after  the  shortest  acquaintance.  She 
consoled  herself  with  his  Dicnshtc/iiks,  and,  several  times 
over,  she  secretly  .<jjot  rid  of  the  children  who  were  the 
results  of  these  intimacies.  In  her  desire  to  keep  her  hold 
on  one  of  her  faithless  lovers,  )ounfj  Orlof, — a  vcr)'  sorry 
fellow,  who  ill-treated  and  fleeced  her, — she  stole  the 
Tsarina's  money  and  jewels.  A  mere  chance  brought  about 
the  discovery  of  these  crimes,  both  small  and  great.  A 
somewhat  important  document  disappeared  from  the  Tsar's 
cabinet ;  suspicion  fell  on  Orlof,  who  had  been  aware  of  its 
existence,  and  who  had  spent  the  night  abroad.  When  he 
was  brought  into  the  Sovereign's  presence,  and  questioned, 
he  lost  his  head,  fancied  that  his  intercourse  with  Hamilton 
was  the  real  object  of  the  enquiry,  fell  on  his  knees,  crying 
*  Vhiovat'  (pardon),  and  confessed  ever}-thing, — both  the 
thefts  by  which  he  had  profited,  and  the  infanticide  at  which 
he  had  connived.  There  was  a  fresh  enquiry  and  a  trial. 
The  unhappy  girl  was  convicted,  besides  her  other  crimes, 
(and  this  last  was  a  mortal  one),  of  having  made  spiteful 
remarks  about  her  Sovereign  lady,  and  jokingly  referred  to 
the  pimples  on  the  imperial  countenance  Catherine,  whatever 
her  faults  may  have  been,  showed  considerable  kindness  on 
this  occasion.  She  interceded  for  the  culprit,  and  induced 
the  Tsarina  Prascovia,  who  enjoyed  considerable  credit,  and 
whose  intervention  was  all  the  more  weighty,  because,  as  a 
rule,  she  was  little  inclined  to  indulgence,  to  follow  her 
example.  According  to  ancient  Russian  ideas,  infanticide 
was  a  crime  which  circumstances  might  easily  be  held  to 
palliate,  and  the  Tsarina  I'rascovia  was  in  many  respects  an 
old-fashioned  Russian.  But  Peter  was  inexorable.  '  He 
would  not,'  he  said,  'be  either  Saul  or  Ahab,  nor  violate  the 
Divine  Law  by  an  excess  of  kindness.'  Had  he  then  such  a 
mighty  respect  for  Divine  Law?  My  own  belief  is  that 
he  scoffed  at  it,  but—  and  this,  in  his  eyes,  was  an  unpardon- 
able fault — he  fancied  himself  cheated  of  .several  soldiers. 
After  having  been  put  to  the  cjucstion  time  after  time,  in  the 
Tsar's  own  presence,  and  having  stcadil)'  refused  to  give  up  the 
name  of  her  accomplice,  whose  onh'  thought  had  been  to  clear 
himself  by  casting  the  guilt  on  her — he  was  but  a  poor  creature, 
that  ancestor  of  the  great  Catherine's  future  favourite — Mary 
Hamilton    mounted  the  scaffold,  on   the    14th   .March    1719, 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  253 

dressed,  so  Staehlin  tells  us,  'in  a  white  silk  gown,  trimmed 
with  black  ribbons.'  Peter,  with  his  love  of  theatrical  effect, 
certainly  had  something  to  do  with  this  last  piece  of  ghastly 
coquetry.  He  was  present  at  the  execution, and  even, — passive 
he  never  could  be,  anywhere, — had  courage  to  play  an  active 
part  in  it.  He  embraced  the  condemned  woman  at  the  foot 
of  the  scaffold,  exhorted  her  to  pray,  and  supported  her  in  his 
arms  when  she  bent  forward,  fainting.  Then  he  stepi)ed 
aside.  When  she  raised  her  head,  the  headsman  had  taken 
the  Tsar's  place.  Scherer  adds  some  terrible  details  to  the 
story.  The  Tsar,  according  to  him,  reappeared  when  the 
axe  had  done  its  work,  and  picking  up  the  bloody  head, 
which  had  rolled  into  the  mud,  he  calmly  began  an  anatomi- 
cal discourse,  drawing  the  attention  of  those  present  to  the 
number  and  nature  of  the  organs  severed  by  the  steel, 
especially  pointing  out  the  section  of  the  spine.  When  this 
was  over,  he  touched  the  pale  lips  he  had  so  often  kissed 
before,  with  his  own,  let  the  head  drop,  crossed  himself,  and 
departed.^ 

1  am  not  at  all  inclined  to  believe  that  there  is  any  truth 
in  the  assertion  that  Menshikof  thought  it  wise  to  push  on 
the  prosecution  and  sentence  of  this  unhappy  woman,  in  the 
interests  of  his  own  protectress,  the  l:^mpress  Catherine. 
This  rival  never  was  a  dangerous  one.  A  short  time  after- 
wards, the  Tsarina  had  much  more  serious  cause  for  alarm. 
In  one  of  Campredon's  despatches,  dated  8th  June  1722,  the 
following  lines  appear : — '  The  Tsarina  fears  that  if  the 
Princess  bears  a  son,  the  Tsar  may  be  induced  by  the 
Prince  of  Wallachia  to  repudiate  his  wife  and  marry  his 
mistress.'     The  mistress  in  question  was  Maria  Kantcmir.^ 

Prince  Uimitri  Kantemir,  who  had  been  one  of  Peter's 
allies  during  the  unfortunate  campaign  against  the  Turks  in 
171 1,  had  lost  his  sovereignty  by  the  treaty  of  the  Pruth. 
He  had  been  given  hospitality  at  St.  Petersburg,  and  there 
waited  wearily  for  the  compensation  he  had  been  given 
reason  to  expect.  For  a  considerable  time  his  daughter 
appeared  more  than   likely  to  obtain   this   for  him.     When 

^  Sicniicvski,  Slovo  i  Dielo,  p.  185-  Korobanof,  Study  in  h'tissian  Antiqui- 
ties, 1S71,  vol  iii.  p.  465.  Golikof,  vol.  vi.  p.  68.  Tatishtchef,  Notes  on  the 
Soitdichnik  (Code)  of  Ivan  Vassilcvilch.  Herrmann,  Peter  Jer  Grosse  un.-i  d(r 
'J sorcvilch  Alexei,  p.  207.  Mordovtsof,  Russian  Women,  p  57.  Sclierer,  vol. 
ii.  p.  272  ;  the  account  given  by  Lubomirski  [7'sar,  Anhduc/iesses,  etc.)  is  a  mere 
work  of  imagination.  ■^  French  Foreign  Oflice. 


254  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Peter  started  for  his  Persian  Campaign  in  1722.  this 
love  affair  had  ah'cady  lasted  several  years,  and  seemed  to 
threaten  a  diiioncnioit  which  mii^ht  be  fatal  to  Catherine's 
interests.  Both  the  ladies  started  with  the  Tsar,  but 
Maria,  who  was  near  her  confinement,  was  obliged  to  stop 
at  Astrakhan.  Her  contlition  increased  the  confidence 
felt  by  her  partisans.  Since  the  death  of  little  Peter 
Petrovitch,  in  17 19,  Catherine  had  no  son  whom  Peter  could 
make  his  heir,  and  it  was  generally  believed  that  if  his 
mistress  bore  him  one,  during  this  expedition,  he  would  not 
hesitate  to  get  rid  of  his  second  wife,  as  he  had  got  rid 
of  his  first.  Catherine's  friends,  if  Scherer  is  to  be  believed, 
took  means  to  avert  this  danger.^  When  Peter  returned, 
he  found  his  mistress  in  bed,  after  a  miscarriage,  which  had 
seriously  threatened  her  life.  Thus  Catherine  triumphed, 
and  the  love  affair  which  had  so  nearly  overthrown  her  for- 
tune, ended  in  the  same  commonplace  manner  as  so  many 
of  its  predecessors.  A  short  time  before  the  Sovereign's 
death,  a  complaisant  individual,  belonging  to  the  same  class 
as  Tchernishof,  and  Roumiantsof,  was  found,  ready  to  be- 
come the  nominal  husband  of  the  Princess,  who,  though  still 
much  courted,  had  forfeited  all  her  ambitious  hopes.^ 

Catherine  came  victoriously  out  of  all  her  difficulties,  and 
a  solemn  coronation  finally  set  her  above  all  attack.  The 
mistress,  wife,  and  sovereign,  rehabilitated  b}^  marriage,  the 
vigilant  guardian  of  the  conjugal  hearth,  who  shared  all  the 
honours  of  the  supreme  rank,  won  the  day  at  last,  and  took 
her  place  above  the  mob  of  female  figures  in  which  we  see 
servant-girls  elbowing  the  daughters  of  Scotch  lairds,  and 
Moldo-Wallachian  j)rincesses. 

And  a  yet  more  unexpected  figure  now  appears  in  that 
strange  throng — a  chaste  and  respected  friend.  Yes,  even 
that  delicate  flower  bloomed  in  the  miry  slough !  The 
woman  who  played  this  part,  was  that  most  seductive  of  all 
human  creatures — a  well-born  Pole — Slav  by  her  birth, 
Latin  by  her  education.  I  have  already  described  Peter  as 
s{)ending  long  hours  in  the  Gardens  of  Jaworow  in  the 
company  of  Elizabeth  Sieniawska.  They  built  a  boat 
together,    rowed    on    the   water,    and    tallied   endlessly.      It 

^  Vol.  iii.  p.  259. 

^  Mhnoires  U  Documents,  vol.  i.  p.  1 19,  etc.  (.Ministry  fur  Foreign  Affairs, 
Palis). 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  255 

was  a  perfect  idyll.  This  lady,  a  Lubomirska,  who  had 
mairied  agreat  Court  dignitary  and  eager  partisan  of  Augustus 
against  Leszczynski,  flits  across  the  turbulent  life  of  the 
brutal  conqueror,  without  being  assailed  by  any  breath  of 
scandal.  It  was  not  so  much  her  beauty, — that  was  far  from 
remarkable, — which  attracted  Peter,  it  was  her  unusual  in- 
telligence. He  delighted  in  her  society,  he  listened  to  her 
advice,  not  always  very  convenient,  for  she  supported  Lesz- 
czynski against  the  Tsar's  own  protege,  and  against  her 
husband's  master.  He  talked  of  his  plan  for  dismissing  all 
the  foreign  officers  in  his  service  ;  she  forthwith  taught  him 
a  lesson  by  dismissing  the  German  leader  of  an  orchestra  of 
Polish  musicians,  which  at  once  gave  forth  such  discordant 
sounds  that  even  the  Tsar's  far  from  sensitive  ear  suffered. 
He  spoke  of  turning  the  provinces,  Russian  or  Polish, 
through  which  Charles  XH.  would  have  to  pass,  to 
reach  Moscow,  into  deserts  ;  and  she  interrupted  him  with  a 
story  of  the  gentleman  who,  to  disoblige  his  wife,  had  him- 
self made  into  a  eunuch.^  She  was  a  charming  woman,  and 
be  was  swayed,  fascinated  and  tamed  by  her  charm  ;  he 
grew  nobler  in  her  company,  transfigured,  as  it  were,  by 
contact  with  her  pure  and  delicate,  tender,  and  yet  resolute, 
nature. 


Women  played  a  large  and  very  varied  part  in  Peter's  life. 
But  far  more  important,  from  the  historical  point  of  view, 
was  the  part  he  himself  played  in  the  destinies  of  Russian 
women  in  general.  In  justice  to  the  great  man,  this  part 
must  be  summarily  described. 

The  Tsar  Alexis  once  gave  solemn  audience,  in  his  castle 
at  Kolomenskoie,  near  Moscow,  to  the  ambassador  of  a 
foreign  power.  A  murmur  of  soft  voices,  and  a  rustling  of 
silken  stuffs,  coming  from  a  half-open  door,  attracted  the 
diplomat's  attention.  The  ceremony  was  being  watched  by 
invisible  spectators, — the  inhabitants  of  the  mysterious  tereiii, 
driven  by  curiosity  into  a  sort  of  semi-violation  of  their 
retirement.  Suddenly,  with  a  violent  push,  the  door  flew 
open,  and  a  handsome,  dark-e>'ed  woman,  blushing  and  con- 
fused, with  a  little  boy  clinging  to  her  skirts,  appeared,  and 

^  Staelilin,  p.  1 19,  etc. 


256  PETER  THE  GREAT 

straightway  vanished,  to  the  courtiers'  f:^eneral  astonishment 
and  alarm.  The  dark -haired  beauty  was  the  Tsarina 
Nathalia,  and  the  Httle  three-year  old  boy,  so  rough  and 
impetuous  alrcad\-,  that  heavy  doors  flew  open  at  his  touch,  was 
one  day  to  overthrow  the  walls  of  the  tcrein  itself.  In  later 
years,  this  picturesque  scene  was  taken  to  be  an  omen.^ 

In  the  seventeenth  century,  national  feeling  in  Russia  was 
full  of  suspicion,  almost  of  hatred,  of  the  weaker  sex.  This 
is  proved  by  many  popular  proverbs  of  the  period :  '  A 
woman's  hair  is  long,  but  her  understanding  is  short. — A 
woman's  mind  is  like  a  house  without  a  roof. — A  man  should 
flee  a  woman's  beauty,  just  as  Noah  tied  the  deluge. — A  horse 
must  be  managed  by  the  bit,  and  a  woman  by  threats. — The 
woman  who  is  visible  is  made  of  copper,  the  woman  who  is 
invisible  is  made  of  gold.' 

Modern  Russian  historians  are  inclined  to  hold  this 
peculiarity  as  one  of  foreign  origin,  quite  contrary  to  the 
natural  tendency  of  the  national  spirit,  which  is  rather  in- 
clined to  proclaim  the  equality  of  the  sexes.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  Russian  legislation  and  the  present  habits  of  the  country, 
are  altogether  opposed  to  that  subjection  of  women,  which 
still  characterises  Western  laws  and  customs.  A  Russian  wife, 
in  the  absence  of  any  special  stipulation  in  the  marriage 
contract,  has  the  sole  control  of  her  fortune.  The  ideas  in 
vogue  before  Peter's  accession,  and  the  corresponding 
institutions  and  habits,  including  the  terem  itself,  were  prob- 
ably of  Byzantine  origin,  the  outcome  of  that  great  current 
of  monkish  and  religious  asceticism,  which  left  such  an 
indelible  mark  on  the  intellectual  and  moral  development  of 
the  country.  The  tcrcin  was  no  harcui.  The  confinement 
of  women  within  its  walls  was  the  result  of  a  very  different 
.sentiment,  dictated,  not  by  jealousy,  but  by  the  fear  of  sin 
and  scandal,  by  a  religious  conception  of  human  life, 
according  to  which  the  cloistered  existence  was  the  ideal 
one,  that  which  was  most  pleasing  in  God's  sight.  The 
idea,  if  not  the  actual  form,  of  the  tercm  was  absolutely 
liyzantine."     This  is  my  theory. 

But,  however  that  may  have  been,  tlic  prison  was  a 
prison,  and  a  severe  one.     Women,  young  girls  especially, 

1  Oustrialof,  vol.  i.  pp.  lo  and  261. 

'  Zabielin,    Private  Life  of  the  Kiisaian    Tsainas,   p.   83,  etc.      Ko  tomarof, 
Htiiory  oj  Russia,  vol.  ii.  p.  475. 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  257 

were  mere  captives;  they  vegetated,  deprived  of  light  and 
air,  in  rooms  which  were  half  dungeon  and  half  cell,  behind 
windows  covered  with  thick  curtains,  and  heavily  padlocked 
doors.  There  was  no  means  of  separate  exit.  The  only 
way  of  getting  out  was  through  the  father's  or  the  husband's 
room,  and  the  father  or  husband  kept  the  keys  in  his  pocket, 
or  under  his  pillow.  On  festival  occasions,  when  the  guests 
were  at  table  and  the  round  ' piroguV  had  made  their 
appearance,  the  wife  of  the  host  stood,  for  a  moment,  on  the 
threshold  of  the  women's  apartment.  Then  the  men  rose 
and  kissed  her,  but  she  retired  immediately.  As  for  the 
unmarried  daughters,  no  male  eye,  not  even  that  of  an 
affianced  husband,  saw  them  till  they  were  married.  A 
bride  married  without  ever  beholding  her  husband  or 
being  seen  by  him.  A  betrothal  strongly  resembled  the 
game  of  hot  cockles.  There  was  indeed  an  individual,  called 
the  SniotnltcJiitsa,  generally  a  relation  of  the  suitor,  who 
inspected  the  girl,  and  reported  accordingly,— but  she 
only  acted  for  the  suitor.  No  young  girl  permitted 
herself  to  wonder  what  her  future  husband  might  be  like. 
Her  father,  when  he  informed  her  that  her  marriage  was 
arranged,  showed  her  a  whip,  fit  emblem  of  the  authority  he 
was  about  to  transmit  to  her  husband,  and  the  only  glimpse 
of  him  she  was  permitted,  before  being  led  to  the  altar.  She 
went  to  church  in  deep  silence,  covered  with  a  heavy  veil  ; 
not  a  gesture,  not  a  word,  except  to  answer  the  priest,  and  then 
only,  for  the  first  time,  the  husband  heard  her  voice.  At  the 
repast  which  followed  the  ceremony,  the  couple  were  separated 
by  a  curtain.  The  bride's  conjugal  existence  did  not  begin 
until  the  first  part  of  the  feast  was  concluded.  Then  her 
bridesmaids  led  her  to  the  nuptial  chamber,  undressed  her, 
and  assisted  her  to  bed.  There  she  waited,  till  the  husband 
was  sufficiently  drunk.  The  groomsmen,  when  they  thought 
this  point  attained,  led  him  to  the  bride's  apartment,  carrying 
torches,  which  they  planted  round  the  bed,  in  barrels  filled 
with  wheat,  barley,  and  oats.  The  bed  itself  was  laid  on 
sheaves  of  rye.  Then  came  the  crucial  moment.  The 
bride's  face  was  seen  at  last.  To  welcome  her  new  master, 
she  rose  from  her  bed,  wrapped  herself  in  a  furred  robe,  went 
several  paces  towards  him,  bending  respectfully,  and  dropped 
her  veil. 

A  man  who  ma\-  have  belie\'ed  himself  to  be  marrying  a 


258  PETER  THE  GREAT 

beautiful  <^\v\,  would  sometimes  see  that  she  was  humpbacked, 
sickl}',  or  frightful!}' uc^h'.  Even  if  the  go-between  had  done 
her  dut}'  conscientiously,  there  was  always  the  chance  of  her 
havin;^  been  deceived,  by  the  substitution  of  another  t^irl  for 
the  real  one ;  such  cases  not  un frequently  occurred.  The 
husband's  only  resource,  in  such  an  event,  was  to  invite  his 
new-made  bride,  upon  the  spot,  to  rid  him  of  her  person  by 
straij^^htway  takincj  the  veil.  But  beinj^,  in  all  probability, 
far  from  sober,  he  did  not  look  too  closely,  and  this  fact 
probably  accounts  for  the  habit  of  making  the  bridegroom 
intoxicated  on  such  occasions.  He  did  not  realise  his  mis- 
fortune until  after  the  marriage  was  consummated,  and 
become  an  accomplished  fact. 

The  result  of  such  marriages  may  easily  be  conceived 
The  chronicles  of  the  scandal-mongers,  and  the  judicial 
records  of  the  period,  teem  with  information  on  the  subject. 
Husbands  would  leave  their  homes,  and  take  refuge  in  the 
peace  of  the  cloister ;  wives,  driven  distracted  by  ill-treat- 
ment, would  use  steel  and  poison  to  free  themselves  from  an 
unendurable  yoke.  The  punishment  allotted  to  such  crimes, 
terrible  as  it  was,  did  not,  as  we  may  judge  by  the  engravings 
of  that  period,  prevent  their  frequent  occurrence.  The 
guilty  woman  was  buried  in  the  earth  up  to  her  waist, 
and  there  left  till  death  came  to  release  her.  The  culprit 
would  sometimes  have  to  wait  ten  days,  before  her  agony  was 
ended, — tortured  all  the  time  by  hunger  and  thirst,  and  half 
devoured  by  worms.^ 

All  these  customs  were  cither  connected  with,  or  the 
direct  outcome  of,  a  social  condition  defined  by  the 
Doniostrol,  a  code  of  laws  drawn  up,  if  not  actually  written 
out,  by  the  Russian  pope  Sylvester,  Ivan  the  Terrible's 
chief  confidant,  during  the  closing  years  of  his  life. 
Whether  the  details  owed  their  origin  to  Tartar,  Byzantine,- 
or  native  sources,  the  same  indelible  mark,  the  brand  of 
barbarism,  was  on  them  all.  Woman  was  sacrificed,  and 
man  thereby  debased.  To  amuse  themselves  in  their 
cloistered  loneliness,  ladies  ox'"  the  higher  ranks  dressed 
themselves  up  like  idols,  painted  themselves  to  their  very 

'  See  illustrations  to  Kerb's  hook.  Also  the  description  given  by  Weber,  in 
Herrmann's  Peter  der  Grosse,  p.  98  (Aujj.  Ijlh,  1717). 

2  Accoi<]iiii^  to  M.  Nckrnssof  {Origin  of  the  Doiin'slroi,  Moscosv,  1S72),  only 
portions  of  llic  work  can  be  ascribed  to  Sylvc>lcr.  The  manusciipt  was  not 
l>ui)lished  by  Golovastof  till  1849. 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  259 

eyes,  and  drank  to  excess.  When  an  Embassy  was  sent 
to  Copenhagen,  in  1630,  to  negotiate  the  marriage  of 
Princess  Irene,  the  daughter  of  the  Tsar  Michael  Feo- 
dorovitch,  with  the  Prince  of  Denmark,  the  Envoys  laid 
particular  stress  on  the  fact  that  the  Tsarevna  'did  not 
drink  brandy.'  The  poorer  women,  who  could  not  afford 
to  dress  up,  consoled  themselves  with  drink  alone, — and 
all  these  wives  were  the  mothers  of  many  children.  With 
this  condition  of  things  Peter  was  resolved  to  do  away. 
And  to  have  succeeded  in  that  matter,  alone,  would  have 
covered  him  with  glory. 

Before  his  time,  it  is  true,  a  steadily  widening  breach 
had  been  made  in  the  old  tradition.  Alexis'  second  marriage, 
with  its  touch  of  romance,  proves  the  existence  of  a  new 
current  of  ideas  and  feeling.  Nathalia  appears  beside  the 
husband  whom  she  had  won  by  her  own  beauty  and 
grace,  in  a  very  different  position  from  that  of  former 
Tsarinas, — frozen,  all  of  them,  into  a  traditional  attitude, 
shut  up  in  the  dreariness  of  their  lofty  isolation.  She  took 
a  certain  share  in  her  husband's  external  occupations.  She 
sometimes  went  out  hunting  with  him,  and  she  was  present 
at  the  performances  given  by  foreign  actors,  drawn  thither  by 
Matvi6ief,  under  the  very  walls  of  the  ancient  Kreml. 
She  even  drove  with  the  Tsar  in  an  open  carriage,  and 
thereby  almost  caused  a  revolution.  Under  the  rule  of 
Alexis'  feeble  and  sickly  successor,  the  current  of  freedom 
ran  yet  stronger.  Feodor's  sisters  did  not  fail  to  take 
advantage  of  his  weakness,  and  of  the  general  confusion 
resulting  from  it.  And  then  Sophia  came  into  power, 
and  inaugurated  an  era  of  feminine  government  in  this 
stronghold  of  female  slavery. 

Peter  did  more,  and  better  still, — or  tried  to,  at  all  events. 
His  Ukases  with  reference  to  marriage  were  directed  against 
an  abuse  of  power,  and  against  defects  of  domestic  organiza- 
tion, amongst  the  lower  classes,  which  had  grown  intoler- 
able. Until  his  time,  only  a  few  days, — sometimes  only 
a  few  hours, — had  been  allowed  to  elapse  between  the 
betrothal  and  the  actual  marriage.  He  decreed  an  interv-al 
of  at  least  six  weeks,  so  as  to  give  the  betrothed  couple 
time  to  make  acquaintance.  This  remedy  was,  of  course, 
neither  absolutely,  nor  immediately,  efficacious.  Only  a  few 
decades  before  our  own  time,  according  to  Mielnikofs  novel 


26o  PETER  THE  GREAT 

'/;/  the  Forests,  the  ancient  traditions  still  survived,  and 
were  clung  to,  in  certain  circles,  with  the  most  unconquerable 
tenacity.  Nevertheless,  an  immense  amount  of  good  was 
done.  According  to  the  laws  in  existence  before  Peter's 
time,  the  head  of  the  household,  father  or  husband,  had 
absolute  power — short  of  capital  punishment,  at  all  events, — 
over  the  women  of  his  household,  whether  wife  or  daughters. 
A  high-born  lady,  Princess  Saltykof,  the  sister-in-law  of 
the  1  sarina  Prascovia,  was  driven,  after  a  long  martj'rdom, 
during  which  she  had  been  beaten  over  and  over  again, 
and  tortured  by  hunger  and  by  cold,  to  take  refuge  in 
the  house  of  her  father,  a  Dolgorouki.  Enquiry  proved  that 
she  had  reached  it  half  dead,  and  covered  with  wounds, — 
yet  her  husband  and  tyrant  claimed  her,  and  all  she  could 
obtain,  after  a  long  and  weary  trial,  was  leave  to  bury 
herself,  for  the  rest  of  her  life,  in  a  cloister.-  My  readers  may 
argue,  from  this  case,  as  to  the  condition  of  things  in  the 
lower  classes.  The  strongest  resistance  of  the  old  Russian 
party  was  made  on  this  point.  The  autocratic  and  despotic 
feeling  was  so  profoundly  enrooted  in  the  national  soul,  that 
Peter  himself  dared  not  make  any  direct  attack  upon  it. 
Some  of  the  laws,  made  between  March  and  October  17 16, 
would  seem  to  betoken  his  approval  of  the  old-fashioned 
customs  ;  but  the  new  spirit  which  he  bore  with  him,  and 
spread  around  him,  was  so  utterly  opposed  to  it,  that,  by 
degrees,  this  iniquitous  law  fell  into  disuse,  was  treated  as 
null  and  void,  and  finally  disappeared  from  the  written 
code  of  the  country.  The  Svod  Zakonov  does  not  refer  to 
it,  and  quite  latterly,  it  was  utterly  abolished,  by  the  Court 
of  Appeal.- 

In  the  upper  classes  of  society,  Peter,  so  to  speak,  took 
women  by  the  hand,  led  them  into  the  circle  of  common  life, 
whether  in  private  or  in  general  society,  and  there  gave 
them  their  own  special  and  well-defined  position.  He 
was  resolved  the  feminine  element  should  be  present  in 
all  future  gatherings.  lie  would  have  women  show  their 
beauty,  talk,  dance,  and  make  music.  In  December  1704, 
astounded  Moscow  witnessed  an  extraordinary  sight.  On 
an  occasion  of  public  rejoicing,  young  girls,  scattering  flowers, 
and  singing  odes,  took  part  in  a  procession  through  the 
public  streets.^ 

*  Mordovstcf,  p.  133.         ^  1869,  Sokolowski  trial.  ^  Golikof,  vol.  ii,  p.  512, 


THE  FEMININE  ELEMENT  261 

The  Reformer  even  endeavoured  to  do  as  much  for  his 
Boyard's  daughters,  as  he  was  doing  for  their  sons.  He 
would  have  sent  them  abroad  to  complete  their  education, 
but  he  was  forced  to  relinquish  this  point  in  face  of  the 
parents'  fierce  opposition.  He  did  his  best,  at  all  events, 
to  secure  them  some  teaching,  and  set  the  example  in  his 
own  family.  He  gave  his  daughters,  Anne  and  Elizabeth, 
a  French  governess.  He  was  occasionally  present  at  their 
lessons,  and  took  care  they  should  assume  a  European 
appearance,  and  that  their  dresses  and  head-coverings  should 
be  copied  from  Parisian  fashions.  When  his  sister-in-law 
Prascovia  ventured  to  criticise  these  innovations,  he  told 
her  that  '  her  house  was  an  asylum  for  fools  and  weak- 
minded  persons,'  and  finally  carried  her  along  with  him. 
Tsar  Ivan's  widow  thus  ended  by  personifying  a  sort  of 
transition  type  in  the  history  of  Russian  women,  the  direct 
outcome  of  Peter's  reform.  She  gave  her  daughters  French 
masters,  and  she  had  a  German  tutor  for  herself.  But  she 
kept  her  Russian  custome,  and  with  it,  her  savage  instincts. 
She  used  to  beat  her  maids-of-honour,  and  one  day, — to 
force  one  of  her  servants  to  plead  guilty  to  some  trifling 
fault, — she  poured  the  bottle  of  brandy  she  always  kept  in 
her  carriage  over  his  head,  set  it  on  fire,  and  then  struck  the 
poor  wretch  with  her  cane,  on  the  horrible  wounds  the 
burning  brandy  had  made.^ 

The  road  before  Peter  was  too  long  for  him  to  reach  the 
goal  he  had,  doubtless,  set  before  him.  And  indeed  his 
native  coarseness  and  depravity  did  not,  it  must  be  ac- 
knowledged, make  him  the  best  of  guides.  He  often  forgot 
himself,  lost  sight  of  the  real  object  of  his  journey, — and  such 
digressions  were  fatal  to  his  end.  He  was  too  apt  to  behave 
like  a  trooper,  and  a  rough  one,  in  the  drawing  rooms  he  had 
called  into  existence,  and  before  the  eyes  of  the  recluses  he 
had  released  from  the  bondage  of  the  terem.  The  moral 
character  of  Russian  women  will  long  bear  traces  of  the 
strange  fashion  in  which  Peter  the  Great  introduced  the  sex 
into  social  life.- 

The  same  reproach  must  be  applied  to  the  \\hole  of  the 
great  man's  work,  and  certainly  detracts  both  from  its  merit 

^  Siemievski,  The  Tsarina  Prascovia,  p.  151. 

^  See  M.    N 's  study  of  Russian  Women  in  the  Days  of  Peter  the  Great. 

Novosti,  1872,  No.  152. 


262  PETER  THE  GREAT 

and  his  glory.  Yet  the  female  world,  now- a -days,  in  its 
more  or  less  legitimate  revolt,  not  in  Russia  only,  against 
the  injustice  and  cruelty,  real  or  imaginary,  of  its  fate,  must 
recognise  Peter  the  Great  as  one  of  its  most  effectual  saviours, 
— just  as  civilization  in  general  must  acknowledge  him  one 
of  its  most  powerful  makers. 

Ikutal  and  cynical  though  he  was,  woman  was  more  to 
him  than  mere  beautiful  flesh.  His  conception  of  her  part 
in  the  family,  and  in  society,  was  so  high  as  to  approach 
within  measurable  distance  of  our  modern  ideal.  And,  even 
if  the  woman  of  whom  I  am  now  about  to  speak  had  never 
appeared  in  his  feminine  circle,  this  fact,  alone,  would  atone 
for  many  faults. 


CHAPTER    III 

CATHERINE 

Her  arrival  in  Russia — The  siege  of  Marienburg — Her  origin — Pastor 
Gllick's  family  —  Sheremetiefs  camp  —  Menshikofs  house  —  Catherine 
Troubatshof — Pietioushka^s  mother — -The  marriage — The  servant  girl 
becomes  the  sovereign. 

Contemporary  opinion— Baron  Von  Pollnitz — The  Margravine  of  Baireuth 
— Caiiipredon — The  portraits  in  the  Romanof  Gallery — Neither  pretty 
nor  distinguished  looking — An  active  temperament  and  a  well-balanced 
mind — An  officer's  wife — Her  influence  over  Peter — She  fascinated  and 
tamed  him  —  Their  correspondence  —  Their  conjugal  intiinacy  —  Tlie 
Tsarina's  share  in  politics — Her  good  actions  and  her  faults — Clouds  on  the 
domestic  horizon. 

These  clouds  are  dispersed — The  steady  rise  of  Catherine's  fortune — The 
death  of  Alexis — Ihe  mother  of  the  heir — She  brings  in  her  family — The 
Riga  postilion — The  Revel  courtesan — The  shoemaker — All  of  them  are 
given  titles — The  pinnacle  of  glory — Catherine's  coronation — The  succes- 
sion to  the  crown — On  the  edge  of  the  abyss — A  criminal  intimacy — The 
Chamberlain  Mons — The  punishment — Inquiries  and  threats — A  dubious 
reconciliation — Peter's  death — and  Catherine's  triumph — She  does  not  turn 
it  to  the  best  account — Reign  of  sixteen  months — A  Comedy  Queen. 


At  the  beginning  of  the  Swedish  war,  in  July  1702,  General 
Shcremetief,  whose  orders  were  to  occupy  Livonia,  and  take 
up  a  strong  position  in  that  country,  laid  siege  to  Marien- 
burg. The  town  was  reduced,  after  a  few  weeks  of  gallant  re- 
sistance, to  the  last  extremity,  and  the  commandant  resolved 
to  blow  himself  up  with  the  fortress.  He  called  some  of 
the  inhabitants  together,  and  privately  warned  them  of  his 
decision,  advising  them  to  decamp  forthwith,  unless  they 
desired  to  share  his  fate,  and  that  of  his  troops.  Amongst 
the  persons  thus  warned,  was  the  Lutheran  pastor  of  the 
place.  He  fled  at  once,  with  his  wife,  his  children,  and  his 
servant  maid,  carrying  nothing  with  him  but  a  Slavonic 
Bible,  which  he  hoped  might  serve  as  safe  conduct  through 
13  ^^ 


264  PETER  THE  GREAT 

the  enemy's  lines.  When  he  wns  stopped  h\-  tlie  Russian 
outposts,  lie  brandished  his  book,  proved  his  Hnguistic  talent 
by  quotin'T  several  passages,  and  offered  to  serve  as  an  inter- 
preter. The  authorities  agreed,  and  undertook  to  send  him 
to  Moscow  with  his  family.  But  how  about  the  servant 
girl  ?  Sheremetief  had  cast  an  approving  eye  on  her  fair 
and  opulent  beauty.  With  a  kno\\ing  smile,  he  gave  orders 
that  she  should  stay  in  camp,  where  her  society  would  be 
more  than  welcome.  Peter  had  not  j'et  thought,  as  he  tlid 
later,  of  forbidding  the  presence  of  the  fair  sex  with  his 
armies.  The  attack  was  to  be  made  on  the  morrow,  but  in 
the  mean  time  the  troops  were  taking  what  pleasure  they 
could  find.  The  new  comer  was  soon  seated  at  table,  in  gay 
cornpany :  she  was  cheerful,  anything  but  shy,  and  was 
received  with  open  arms.  A  dance  was  just  about  to  begin, 
and  the  hautboys  were  tuning  up.  Suddenly,  a  fearful  ex- 
plosion overthrew  the  dancers,  cut  the  music  short,  and  left 
the  servant  maid,  fainting  with  terror,  in  the  arms  of  a 
dragoon.  The  commandant  of  Marienburg  had  kept  his  word. 
Thus  it  was, — to  a  noise  like  thunder,  and  close  clasped  in  a 
soldier's  embrace — that  Catherine  I.  made  her  first  appear- 
ance in  Russian  history.^ 

She  was  not,  at  that  time,  called  'Catherine'  at  all,  and 
no  one  knows  what  name  she  really  bore,  nor  whence  she 
came,  nor  how  she  had  reached  Marienburg.  Roth  as 
regards  her  family,  and  the  country  of  her  birth,  history  and 
legend  are  at  variance.  The  only  point  on  which  docu- 
ments, more  or  less  authentic,  and  traditions,  more  or  less 
worthy  of  credit,  unite  in  agreeing,  is  in  a  general  affir- 
mation that  her  life  and  destiny  were  the  most  extraordinary 
to  which  any  woman  was  ever  called — no  romance  of  an 
empress,  some  story,  rather,  out  of  the  Arabian  Nights.  I 
will  try  to  relate — not  the  certainties,  for  there  are  hardly 
any  certainties — but  the  most  probable  facts,  in  this  unique 
career. 

She  was  born  in  a  Livonian  village,  whether  in  Swedish 
or  Polish  Livonia,  no  one  knows,  some  say  in  that  of  Vyshki- 
Oziero,   in   the  neighbourhood   of  Riga,  others,  at    Ringen, 

'  Weber,  Memoirs  of  the  Reign  of  the  Empress  Catherine,  1728,  pp.  605-613; 
Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  p.  128,  etc.  ;  Grot,  Examination  0/  the  Origin  of  the  Empress 
Catherine,  in  the  Memoirs  of  the  '  Acadt'mie  des  Sciences''  of  St.  Petersburg,  1 877, 
vol.  xviii. 


CATHERINE  265 

in  the  district  of  Derpt  (now  known  as  lourief).^  In  171 8,  on 
the  nth  of  October,  the  anniversary  of  the  capture  of  Note- 
burfT,  a  Swedish  town,  Peter  wrote, — ^  KaterinonsJika,  greet- 
ing !  greeting  on  the  occasion  of  this  happy .  day,  on 
which  Russia  first  set  foot  on  your  native  soil ! '  Yet, 
Catherine  would  rather  seem  to  have  come  of  some  Polish 
family.  Her  brothers  and  sisters,  who  appeared  on  the 
scene  in  later  years,  were  called  Skov^oroshtchenko  or 
Skovorotski,  which  for  the  sake  of  euphony,  doubtless,  has 
been  turned  into  Skovronski.^  We  may  suppose  these 
emigrants,  as  they  may  have  been — mere  peasants,  in  any 
case — to  have  fled  the  yoke  of  serfdom,  grown  intolerable 
in  their  native  land,  to  seek  some  less  oppressive  servi- 
tude elsewhere.  In  1702,  Catherine  was  seventeen  years 
old,  and  an  orphan.  Her  mother  is  believed  to  have 
been  the  serf,  and  the  mistress,  of  a  high-born  Livonian 
named  Alvendhal.  Of  this  connection — possibly  a  very  tem- 
porary one — Catherine  w^as  the  fruit.  Her  legitimate  father 
and  mother  died,  her  real  father  disowned  her,  and  when 
still  a  mere  child,  she  was  received  and  sheltered  by  Pastor 
Gliick.  He  taught  her  the  catechism,  but  she  did  not  learn 
her  alphabet.  She  never  could  do  more,  in  later  years,  than 
just  sign  her  name.  She  grew  up  in  her  protector's  house, 
making  herself  useful,  as  she  grew  older,  sharing  the  household 
duties,  and  taking  care  of  the  children.  Gliick  received 
foreign  pupils,  and  she  helped  to  wait  on  them ;  two  of 
these  pupils  declared,  in  later  years,  that  she  always  stinted 
them  in  their  bread  and  butter.  This  instinct  of  economy 
never  deserted  her.  In  certain  other  matters,  according  to 
some  historians,  and  from  a  very  early  age,  she  was  more 
than  liberal.  A  Lithuanian  gentleman  of  the  name  of 
Tiesenhausen,  and  other  lodgers  in  the  pastor's  house,  are 
reported  to  have  enjo)-ed  her  favours.  She  is  even  said  to 
have  brought  a  girl  into  the  world,  who  died  when  only  a 
few  months  old.  Not  long  before  the  siege,  her  master 
thought  it  best  to  put  a  stop  to  the.se  irregularities,  by 
finding  her  a   husband.     The   husband  or  the  betrothed — 

^  A  paper  was  published  in  Westcrmann's  Illuslrirtc  fl/oiififschnft,  in  1857, 
with  the  object  of  proving  that  Catherine  was  born  at  Riga,  and  belonged  to  the 
Badendik  family,  from  which  the  writer  of  the  paper,  Ilerr  Tversen,  was 
descended. 

^  Arsenief,  Catherine's  Reign,  vol.  i.  pp.  74,  75.  Andreief,  7 he  Kepresenta- 
tiz'es  0/  Authority  in  Russia,  after  Peter  I.  (St.  Petersburg,  1870),  p.  5. 


266  PETER  THE  GREAT 

there  is  some  unccrtaint}-  on  this  point — a  Swcdisli  Life- 
gufirdsman  named  Krusc,  disappeared  after  the  capture  of 
the  town,  having  been  taken  prisoner  by  the  Russians,  and 
sent  far  away,  or,  according  to  a  better  estabhshed  version, 
he  escaped  the  catastrophe,  iiaving  been  sent  towards  Riga, 
with  his  regiment,  either  just  before,  or  just  after,  the  con- 
summation of  the  marriage.  Catherine,  after  she  became 
Tsarina,  sought  him  out,  and  gave  him  a  pension.^ 

Meanwhile,  she  was  the  joy  of  that  portion  of  the  Russian 
army  which  was  engaged  in  the  Livonian  campaign.  She 
began  as  the  mistress  of  a  non-commissioned  officer,  who  beat 
her,  and  finall)',  passed  into  the  possession  of  the  general 
himself,  who  soon  grew  weary  of  her.  The  question  of  how 
she  came  into  Menshikofs  household  is  one  on  which 
opinions  vary.  Some  authorities  declare  she  was  first 
engaged  to  wash  the  favourite's  shirts.  She  would  seem,  in 
one  of  her  letters  to  Peter,  after  she  had  become  his  wife,  to 
allude  to  this  fact  in  her  past  career  :  '  Though  you  doubtless 
have  other  laundresses  about  you,  the  old  one  never  forgets 
you.'  And  Teter  answers  gallantly,  'You  are  mistaken, 
you  must  be  thinking  of  Shafirof,  who  mixes  up  his  love 
affairs  with  his  clean  linen.  That  is  not  my  way,  and_ 
besides,  I  am  growing  old.'  One  thing  is  certain,  her 
original  position  in  her  new  protector's  house  was  a  some- 
what humble  one.  When  Menshikof  wrote,  in  March  1706, 
to  his  own  sister  Anne,  and  to  the  Arscnief  sisters,  to  come 
and  meet  him  at  Witebsk  for  the  Easter  festivities,  foresee- 
ing that  their  fear  of  the  bad  roads  might  prevent  them 
from  obeying  his  call,  he  begged  them,  at  all  events,  to 
send  him  Catherine  Troubatshof  and  two  other  girls.^  This 
name  of  Troubatshof  may  be  an  allusion  to  Catherine's 
husband  or  betrothed,  for  the  Russian  word  Troiiba  means 
truvipct. 

But  an  important  c\cnt  had  ahead}-  occurred  in  the  exis- 
tence of  the  person   thus   so   unceremoniously  disposed   of. 

^  Arsenief,  Russian  Archives,  1875,  vl.  ii.  p.  240. 

'^  Oustrialof  refuses  to  admit  that  this  letter  can  refer  to  the  future  Tsarina,  and 
appeals  to  the  testimony  of  Gordon,  according  to  whom  the  girl  bore  the  name 
of  Catherine  Vasilei'na  until  it  wrs  converted,  on  her  conversion  to  the  Greek 
Church,  into  that  of  Catherine  Aiixitievna,  but  Peter  himself,  and  other  con- 
temporary authorities,  give  her  diflerent  and  very  varied  names,  in  perfectly 
reliable  documents  (Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  part.  ii.  p.  329.  Compare  Peter's 
'  IVritivgs  and  CorresfonJitice,^  vol.  iii.  p.  283. 


CATHERINE  267 

Peter  had  seen  her,  and  had  proved  himself  far  from  indifferent 
to  her  charms.  There  are  many  different  stories  as  to  this 
first  meeting.  The  Tsar,  we  are  told,  paid  a  visit  to  Men- 
shikof,  after  the  capture  of  Narva,  and  was  astonished  by 
the  air  of  cleanliness  visible  in  the  favourite's  person  and 
surroundings.  He  enquired  how  he  contrived  to  have  his 
house  so  well  kept,  and  to  wear  such  fresh  and  dainty  linen. 
Menshikofs  only  answer  was  to  open  a  door,  through  which 
the  sovereign  perceived  a  handsome  girl,  aproned,  and  sponge 
in  hand,  bustling  from  chair  to  chair,  and  going  from  window 
to  window,  scrubbing  the  window  panes.^  The  picture  is 
a  pleasing  one,  but  1  notice  one  drawback.  Narva  fell  in 
August  1704,  and  at  that  date,  Peter  had  already  made 
Catherine  the  mother  of  at  least  one  child.  During  the 
month  of  March,  in  the  following  year,  she  bore  him  a  son, 
the  little  Pietroitshka,  of  whom  Peter  speaks  in  one  of  his 
letters.     Eight  months  later,  she  had  two  boys.^ 

These  children  were  certainly  dear  to  the  great  man,  for, 
he  thought  of  them  even  among  the  terrible  anxieties  which 
then  devoured  him.  But  he  does  not  appear,  as  yet,  to  have 
cared  much  for  their  mother.  There  has  been  a  world  of 
hair-splitting  over  the  circumstances  of  Catherine's  removal 
from  the  favourite's  household,  to  that  of  the  Tsar.  All  sorts 
of  dramatic  incidents  have  been  invented.  According  to  one 
story,  the  lady,  after  an  agreement  between  the  two  friends, 
and  a  formal  cession  of  Menshikofs  rights  to  his  master, 
took  up  her  residence  in  her  new  home,  where  her  eye 
shortly  fell  on  certain  magnificent  jewels.  Forthwith,  burst- 
ing into  tears,  she  addressed  her  new  protector :  '  Who  put 
those  ornaments  here.''  If  they  come  from  the  other  one,  1 
will  keep  nothing  but  this  little  ring  ;  but  if  they  come  from 
you,  how  could  you  think  I  needed  them  to  make  me  love 
you?' 

In  all  human  probability,  matters  were  arranged  after  a 
fa.r  simpler  fashion.  I  cannot  conceive  any  such  disinterested- 
ness on  her  part,  nor  such  prodigality  on  his.  This  scene, 
too,  is  supposed  to  have  occurred  at  a  period  when  the  fair 
Livonian  and  her  august  lover  were  already  bound  together 
by  the  existence  of  two  children.     During  the    succeeding 

^  MSmoires  et  Documents^  vol.  i.  p.   163  (Paris  Foreign  Oflice). 
'■^See  letter  signed  'Catherine  and  two  others,'  Oct.  1705;  also  see  Writings 
and  Correspondence,  vol.  iii.  p.  283. 


268  PETER  THE  GREAT 

years,  I  can  perceive  no  evident  change  in  the  humble  and 
dubious  situation  occupied  by  her  in  that  common  harem, 
where  Peter  and  Mcnshikof  were  wont,  cither  turnabout,  or 
together,  to  take  their  pleasure.  Sometimes  she  was  with 
the  Tsar,  and  sometimes  with  the  favourite.  At  St.  Peters- 
burg, she  lived,  with  all  the  other  ladies,  in  Menshikof's 
house.  She  was  still  no  more  than  an  obscure  and  com- 
plaisant mistress.  Peter  had  many  others,  and  she  never 
ventured  to  object.  She  went  so  far  as  to  pander  willingly 
to  the  faults,  and  even  to  the  infidelities  of  her  female  rivals, 
and  made  up,  by  her  own  unfailing  cheerfulness,  for  their 
caprices  of  temper.  Thus,  slowly,  and  almost  insensibly, 
she  endeared  herself  to  the  Sovereign,  and  above  all,  she 
grew  into  a  habit  with  him.  She  took  root  in  his  heart, 
entrenched  herself  there,  and  ended  by  making  herself 
indispensable.  In  1706,  he  would  seem  to  have  feared, 
for  a  moment,  that  she  might  slip  through  his  fingers,  after 
the  fashion  of  Anna  Mons.  He  began  to  consider  the  draw- 
backs likely  to  result  from  the  promiscuity  in  which,  up  to 
that  time,  he  and  Menshikof  had  mingled  their  pleasures 
and  their  rights.  I  notice  a  sort  of  dim  uneasiness  about 
him,  and  pricks  of  conscience  which  may  have  been  nothing 
but  hints  of  unconscious  jealousy.  He  had  joked  for  years 
over  Menshikof's  promise  to  marry  Daria  Arsenief,  and  held 
it  null  and  void.  In  1706,  he  declared  it  valid  and  sacred, 
and  wrote  to  his  alter  ego,  'For  God's  sake,  for  my  soul's  sake, 
remember  your  oath  and  keep  it !'  ^ 

Menshikof  set  him  the  example,  and  Peter  followed  it, 
though  not  till  much  later.  Catherine  is,  indeed,  said  to  have 
been  united  to  him,  at  this  time,  by  a  secret  marriage.  After 
the  year  1709,  she  never  left  him,  and  in  Poland  and 
Germany,  whither  she  accompanied  the  Tsar,  she  was  treated 
almost  like  a  Sovereign.  Two  other  children,  daughters 
both,  had  bound  her  still  more  closely  to  her  lover.  But, 
officially  speaking,  she  was  nothing  but  a  mistress.  In 
January  1708,  when  Peter  departed  from  Moscow  to  rejoin 
his  army,  and  take  part  in  what  promised  to  be  a  decisive 
campaign,  he  left  this  note  behind  him  :  '  If,  b}'  God's  will, 
anything  should  happen  to  me,  let  the  3,000  roubles  which 
will  be  found  in  Menshikof's  house,  be  given  to  Catherine 
Vassilevska    and    her    daughter.      Piter!      They    had    not 

'  Russian  Archives,  1875,  vol.  ii.  p.  245. 


CATHERINE  269 

travelled  very  far  beyond  the  ducat  bestowed  after  their  first 
meeting !  ^ 

How  then,  and  when,  did  Peter  finally  decide  on  the 
apparently  wild  and  impossible  folly  of  making  this  woman  his 
legitimate  wife  and  Empress?  The  resolution  is  said  to 
have  been  taken  in  171 1,  after  the  campaign  of  the  Pruth. 
Catherine's  unfailing  devotion,  her  courage,  and  her  presence 
of  mind  at  critical  moments,  had  overcome  his  last  hesita- 
tion. She  conquered  him,  and  he,  at  the  same  time,  per- 
ceived the  means  by  which  the  choice  of  such  a  partner  and 
such  a  Sovereign  might  be  excused  in  his  subjects'  eyes. 
The  intervention  of  the  former  servant  girl  had  saved  the 
Russian  army  and  its  leader  from  irreparable  disaster,  and 
inextinguishable  shame.  Peter,  if  he  led  her  to  the  altar, 
and  placed  the  Imperial  diadem  on  her  brow,  would  only  be 
repaying  the  common  debt.  And  this  was  clearly  expressed 
in  the  manifesto  he  addressed  to  his  own  people,  and  to  the 
whole  of  Europe. 

But  here,  again,  alas  !  we  have  nothing  but  an  ingenious 
hypothesis,  contradicted  by  all  the  facts  and  every  date. 
The  part  played  by  Catherine  on  the  banks  of  the  Moldavian 
river,  when  the  Russian  army  was  surrounded  by  the  Turks 
and  the  Tartars,  dates — if  it  ever  took  place  at  all,  and  this  is 
very  doubtful — somewhere  in  the  month  of  June  171 1;  at 
that  moment  she  had  already,  for  over  six  months,  been 
publicly  acknowledged  as  Peter's  wife.  The  Tsar's  son 
Alexis,  who  was  then  staying  in  Germany,  had  heard  the 
news  early  in  May,  and  had  written  his  stepmother  a  con- 
gratulatory letter.^ 

'i  he  great  reformer  was  not  likely  to  seek  more  or  less 
valid  excuses  for  any  decision  or  act  of  his.  Later,  it  is  true, 
- — ten  years  later, — on  the  occasion  of  Catherine's  coronation, 
he  thought  fit  to  recall  the  already  distant  memory  of  the 
peril  she  had  helped  to  avert  in  171 1.  3ut,  it  may  be  fairly 
believed,  that  his  object  in  so  doing  was  to  indicate  the  sense 
and  bearing  of  this  unusual  ceremony,  whereby,  failing  a 
direct  successor  to  the  Crown,  he  desired  to  invest  her,  in  a 
manner,  with  his  inheritance,  and  to  ensure  the  execution, 
after  his  own  death,  of  a  will  which,  in  his  lifetime,  owed  no 

^  Russian  Archives,  1S75,  ^'"l-  '■•  P-  S^- 

^  Oustrialof,  vol.  vi.  p.  312.     Juel,  J^n  A'ej'se  tit  l!us/a/tJ  (Copenhagen,  1S93), 
p.  422. 


270  PETER  THE  GREAT 

account  to  any  one.  It  was  at  this  moment  that  the  manifesto 
to  which  I  have  ah'cady  referred  was  published,  and  by  it 
Peter  condescended  to  reckon  with  those  who  mii;ht  survive 
him. 

It  is  m\'  duty  to  add,  that  the  very  fact  of  this  marriajii^e 
has  been  denied  ;  ^  but  we  possess  very  reliable  testimony  on 
the  subject,  in  the  shape  of  a  despatch  written  from  Moscow 
on  the  20th  February  (2nd  March)  1712,  by  Whitworth, 
the  British  envoy.  '  Yesterda\',  the  Tsar  publicly  celebrated 
his  marriacje  with  his  wife,  Catherine  Alexieievna.  Last 
winter,  about  two  hours  before  his  C/.arisch  Majesty  left 
Moscow,  he  summoned  the  Empress  Dowager,  his  sister  the 
Tsarevna  Nathalia,  and  two  other  half-sisters,  to  whom  he 
declared  this  lady  to  be  his  empress,  and  that  they  should 
pay  her  the  respect  due  to  that  quality,  and  in  case  any  mis- 
fortune mic^ht  happen  to  him  in  the  campaign,  should  allow 
her  the  same  rank,  privileges,  and  revenue  as  was  usual  to 
the  other  dowagers,  for  that  she  was  his  real  wife,  though 
he  had  not  the  time  to  perform  the  ceremonies  according  to 
the  custom  of  his  country,  which  should  be  done  at  the 
first  opportunity.  The  preparations  have  been  making  for 
four  or  five  da}^s,  and  on  the  iSth  Mons.  Kykin,  a  Lord  of 
the  Admiralty,  and  Adjutant-General  lagusinski,  two  per- 
sons in  a  good  degree  of  favour,  were  sent  about  to  invite 
the  company  to  his  Majesty's  old  wedding  (for  these  were 
the  terms  they  were  ordered  to  use).  'The  Tsar  was 
married  in  his  quality  of  rear-admiral,  and  for  that  reason, 
not  his  Ministers  and  nobility,  but  his  sea  officers,  had  the 
chief  employments,  the  Vice-Admiral  Cruys  and  the  rear- 
admiral  of  the  galleys  being  the  bridegroom's  fathers,  and 
the  Empress  Dowager,  with  the  vice-admiral's  lady,  were 
the  bride's  mothers.  The  bridesmaids  were  two  of  the 
Empress  Catherine's  own  daughters,  one  above  five,  and 
the  other  three  years  old.  The  wedding  was  performed 
privately,  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  in  a  little  chajicl 
belonging  to  Prince  Menshikof,  where  no  one  assisted  but 
those  who  were  obliged  to  do  it  through  their  offices. - 

In  spite  of  this,  Whitworth  tells  us  that  in  the  course  of 
the  day,  there  was  a  great  reception  at  the  Palace,  a  State 
dinner,  a  ball,  and  a  display  of  fireworks.  And  the  Dutch 
Resident,  De  Bie,  mentions  an  entertainment  given  in  honour 

'  Dok^oroukofs  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  38.  -  London  Records  Office. 


CATHERINE  271 

of  the  occasion  by  Prince  IMenshikof.^  Thus  the  event  was 
marked  by  a  certain  amount  of  publicity.  Peter's  motives, 
and  the  progressive  course  of  ideas  and  sentiments  which  led 
up  to  the  extraordinary  denouement  of  this  liaison,  would 
seem  to  me  clearly  proved  by  a  comparison  of  the  P^nglish 
Minister's  despatch  with  those  I  have  already  quoted.  His 
evident  desire  was  to  ensure  the  future  of  his  partner  and  his 
children,  and  his  duty  in  this  respect  appeared  to  him  clearer 
and  more  pressing,  in  proportion,  doubtless,  to  the  increase 
of  his  affection  for  his  children,  and  his  tenderness  and  regard 
for  her.  Before  the  campaigns  of  1708  and  171 1,  he  simply 
endeavoured  to  set  things  in  order,  and  clear  his  own  con- 
science, without  any  regard  to  the  effect  his  action  might 
produce.  In  the  first  instance,  a  gift  of  3000  roubles  appeared 
to  him  sufficient ;  in  the  second,  he  thought  it  right  to  ensure 
Catherine  the  benefits  of  a  reputed  marriage.  P'inally,  feel- 
ing himself  bound,  in  honour, — but  not  until  another  year  had 
passed  away,  and  until,  probably,  he  had  undergone  some 
pressure  both  from  Catherine  herself  and  from  some  of  the 
persons  cognisant  of  the  circumstances  of  this  domestic 
drama,  among  whom,  doubtless,  the  ci-devant  Livonian 
peasant  had  made  herself  a  certain  number  of  friends, — he  kept 
his  word,  without,  however,  surrounding  the  event  with  any 
remarkable  lustre  or  display. 

It  may  be  objected  that  as  no  ecclesiastical  authority  had 
broken  Peter's  first  marriage  with  Eudoxia,  and  as  the  e.x- 
Tsarina  was  still  alive,  this  second  alliance  was  radically 
void.  I  fully  admit  it ;  but  Catherine  was  accepted,  none 
the  less,  as  a  legally  married  woman.  Let  us  pass  on  to 
what  her  contemporaries  thought  and  said  of  the  new 
Empress, 

II 

Baron  Von  Pollnitz,  who  saw  her  in  17 17,  thus  describes 
her : — 'The  Tsarina  was  in  the  prime  of  life,  and  showed  no 
signs  of  having  possessed  beauty.  She  was  tall  and  strong, 
exceedingly  dark,  and  would  have  seemed  darker  but  for  the 
rouge  and  whitening  with  which  she  covered  her  face.  There 
was  nothing  unpleasant  about  her  manners,  and  any  one  who 
remembered  the  princess's  origin  would  have  been  disposed 

'  Despatch,  dated  March  5lh,  1712  (Archives  at  the  Hague). 


272  PETER  THE  GREAT 

to  think  them  good.  There  is  no  doubt  that  if  she  had  had 
any  sensible  person  about  her  she  would  have  improved 
herself,  for  she  had  a  great  desire  to  do  well.  But  hardly 
anything  more  ridiculous  than  the  ladies  of  her  Court  can 
well  be  imagined.  It  was  said  that  the  Tsar,  a  most  extra- 
ordinary prince,  had  taken  pleasure  in  choosing  out  these 
persons,  so  as  to  mortify  other  ladies  of  his  Court  more 
worthy  to  fill  such  offices.  ...  It  might  fairly  be  said  that 
if  this  princess  had  not  all  the  charms  of  her  sex  she  had  all 
its  gentleness.  .  .  .  During  her  visit  to  Berlin,  she  showed 
the  queen  the  greatest  deference,  and  let  it  be  understood 
that  her  own  extraordinary  fortune  did  not  make  her  forget 
the  difference  between  that  princess  and  herself 

The  Margravine  of  Baireuth,  whose  recollections  date 
from  a  year  later,  shows,  as  might  be  expected,  less  good 
nature  : 

'  The  Tsarina  was  short  and  huddled  up,  very  much  tanned, 
and  quite  devoid  of  dignity  or  grace.  The  very  sight  of  her 
proved  her  low  birth.  She  was  muffled  up  in  her  clothes 
like  a  German  comedy  actress.  Her  gown  had  been  bought 
in  some  old  clothes'  shop,  it  was  very  old-fashioned,  covered 
with  heavy  silver  embroidery,  and  with  dirt.  The  front  of 
her  skirt  was  adorned  with  jewels,  the  design  was  very 
peculiar.  It  was  a  double  eagle,  the  feathers  of  which  were 
covered  with  tiny  diamonds.  She  had  a  dozen  orders,  and  as 
many  portraits  of  saints  and  relics,  fastened  all  along  the 
facings  of  her  dress,  so  that  when  she  walked  she  jingled 
like  a  mule.' 

But  the  Margravine  was  a  perfect  viper. 

Campredon,  who  is  by  no  means  over- disposed  to  in- 
dulgence, acknowledges  the  Tsarina's  political  instinct  and 
insight.  Whether  or  not  she  saved  the  arm\',  in  the  campaign 
of  the  Pruth,  she  certainly  served  it  well  during  the  Persian 
expedition.  The  story,  as  told  by  the  French  Minister,  is 
not  very  flattering  to  Peter.  During  the  great  summer 
heats,  the  Tsar  gave  his  troops  orders  to  march,  and  would 
then  go  to  sleep  himself  When  he  woke,  he  found  that  not 
a  man  had  moved,  and  when  he  asked  what  general  had 
dared  to  countermand  his  orders :  '  1  did  it,'  said  the 
princess,  coming  forward,  'because  your  men  would  have 
died  of  heat  and  of  thirst.'  ^ 

'  January  6th,  1723. 


CATHERINE  273 

I  have  already  said  that  the  portraits  of  Catherine,  pre- 
served in  the  Romanof  Gallery  in  the  Winter  Palace,  give  no 
indication  of  the  physical  charms  which  made  her  fortune. 
They  betray  no  sign  either  of  beauty  or  distinction.  The 
face  is  large,  and  round,  and  common  ;  the  nose  hideously 
turned  up.  She  has  goggle  eyes,  an  opulent  bust,  and  all  the 
general  appearance  of  a  servant  girl  in  a  German  inn.  The 
sight  of  her  shoes,  which  are  piously  preserved  at  Teterhof, 
was  to  inspire  the  Comtesse  de  Choiseul-Gouffier  with  the 
reflection  that  the  Tsarina's  earthly  life  had  been  spent '  on  a 
good  footing.'  ^  The  secret  of  her  success  must  be  sought 
elsewhere.  This  coarse- looking,  and,  to  us,  unattractive 
woman,  possessed  a  physical  organisation,  as  robust  and 
indifferent  to  fatigue  as  Peter's  own,  and  a  moral  tempera- 
ment far  better  balanced  than  the  Tsar's.  Between  1704 
and  1723  she  bore  the  lover,  who  ultimately  became  her 
husband,  eleven  children,  most  of  whom  died  in  infancy. 
Yet  her  physical  condition  scarcely  affected  her  exterior  life, 
and  never  prevented  her  from  following  the  Sovereign  whither- 
soever he  went.  She  was  a  typical  officer's  wife — PaJiodnala 
Ofitserskaiajaia,  is  the  Russian  expression — well  able  to  go 
on  active  service,  lie  on  the  hard  ground,  live  in  a  tent,  and 
make  double  or  treble  stages  on  horseback.  On  the  Persian 
campaign  she  shaved  her  head,  and  wore  a  grenadier's  cap. 
She  would  review  the  troops ;  she  would  pass  down  the 
ranks,  before  a  battle,  dropping  cheering  words,  and  be- 
stowing bumpers  of  brandy.  A  bullet  struck  one  of  the  men 
in  close  attendance  on  her,  but  she  never  blenched.'-^  When, 
after  Peter's  death,  the  town  of  Revel  was  threatened  by  the 
allied  squadrons  of  England  and  of  Denmark, she  would  herself 
have  embarked  on  one  of  her  warships  to  drive  them  back. 

She  was  not  devoid  of  vanity  ;  she  dyed  her  fair  hair 
black,  to  increase  the  brilliancy  of  her  high-coloured  com- 
plexion. She  forbade  the  ladies  of  her  court  to  copy  her 
dresses  ;  she  was  a  beautiful  dancer,  a- first-class  performer  of 
the  most  complicated  pirouettes,  especially  when  the  Tsar 
himself  was  her  partner.  With  others  she  generally  con- 
tented herself  with  walking  through  her  steps.  She  was  a 
mixture    of  subtle   womanliness,   and   of   almost   masculine 

^  Rcminiscfuces,  1862,  p.  340. 

2  Pylaief,  'J he  Forgotten  Past,  p.  441.     Memoires  et  Documents  (Paris  Foreign 
Office),  vol.  ii.  p.  119. 


274  PETER  THE  GREAT 

activity.  She  could  make  herself  most  amiable  to  those  who 
approached  her,  and  she  knew  how  to  control  Peter's  sava^j^e 
outbreaks.  Her  low  extraction  caused  her  no  embarrass- 
ment. She  never  forci^ot  it,  and  frequently  spoke  of  it  to 
those  who  had  known  her  before  her  elevation, — to  a  German 
tutor,  who  had  been  employed  by  Gllick  when  she  had  been 
a  servant  in  the  pastor's  house,^  and  to  Whitworth, — who  may' 
indeed  have  been  carried  away  by  vanity  when  he  insinuates 
that  he  had  been  in  her  closest  intimacy,  but  whom  she  cer- 
tainly invited  one  day  to  dance  with  her,  enquiring  whether 
he  had  not  '  forgotten  the  Katicri)WHsJika  of  former  days.'  - 

The  very  considerable  influence  which  she  exercised  over 
her  husband  was  partly  due, — according  to  contemporary 
o])inion,  —  to  her  power  of  calming  his  fits  of  nervous 
irritation,  which  were  always  attended  by  excruciating  head- 
aches. At  such  moments  the  Tsar  would  pass  alternately 
from  a  state  of  prostration  to  one  of  fury,  not  far  removed 
from  downright  madness,  and  every  one  fled  his  presence. 
Catherine  would  approach  him  fearlessly,  address  him  in  a 
language  of  her  own,  half  tender  and  half  commanding,  and 
her  very  voice  seemed  to  calm  him.  Then  she  would  take 
his  head,  and  caress  it  tenderly,  passing  her  fingers  through 
his  hair.  Soon  he  grew  drowsy,  and  slept,  leaning  against 
her  breast.  For  two  or  three  hours  she  would  sit  motion- 
less, waiting  for  the  cure  slumber  always  brought  him.  He 
always  woke  cheerful  and  refreshed. 

She  endeavoured  to  curtail  the  excesses  of  all  sorts,  the 
night  orgies  and  drinking  bouts,  to  which  he  was  addicted. 
In  September,  1724,  the  launch  of  a  new  ship  was,  as  usual, 
made  the  pretext  for  an  endless  banquet.  She  went  to  the 
door  of  the  cabin  in  which  Peter  had  shut  himself  up  to 
drink  undisturbed  with  his  boon  companions,  and  called  out, 
^  Pora  doiiioi,  batioiis/ika ! '  (it  is  time  to  come  home,  little 
father),  he  obey-cd,  and  dcj^arted  with  her.^ 

She  would  appear  to  have  been  full  of  real  affection  and 
devotion,  although  the  somewhat  theatrical  manifestation  of 
her  grief  after  the  great  man's  death,  cast  a  certain  doubt  on 
her  sincerity.  Villcbois  mentions  two  Englishmen,  who  went 
every  day  for  six  weeks  to  watch  the  Tsarina  in  the  chapel 

'  Coxe,  Travels,  17S5,  vol.  i.  p.  511. 

-Whitworth,  An  Aaounl  of  Russia  (I^findnn,  1771),  preface,  p.  XX. 

'  Jtiischin^s-Magazin,  vol.  xxii.  p.  492. 


CATHERINE  275 

where  the  corpse  of  the  Tsar  was  laid  in  state ;  and  he 
declared  the  sight  touched  his  own  feelings  like  a  per- 
formance of  the  Andromache.  This  sorrow  did  not  pre- 
vent the  Tsarina  from  claiming  her  right  to  inherit  from 
the  Tsar,  with  the  utmost  vigour,  and  the  most  absolute 
presence  of  mind.  Peter's  affection  is  less  dubious.  It  may 
have  been  coarse  in  fibre,  but  there  is  no  doubt  about  its 
strength.  His  letters  to  Catherine,  on  the  rare  occasions 
when  they  were  separated,  express  the  deep  attachment  of 
the  'old  fellow,'  as  he  was  pleased  to  call  himself,  for  his 
Katierinotishka — for  the  friend  of  his  heart  {drouh  serdesfi- 
iiioiikii)  {sic),  for  the  mother  of  his  dear  Shishetika  (the  little 
Peter)  with  most  evident  sincerity.  Their  usual  tone  is  cheery 
and  even  joking.  There  are  no  fine  sentences,  nothing  but 
heartfelt  words ;  no  passion,  much  tenderness  ;  no  blazing 
heat,  a  gentle,  equal  warmth,  never  a  discordant  note,  and 
always  a  longing  to  return,  on  the  first  opportunity,  to  the 
beloved  wife,  and,  yet  more,  to  the  friend  and  companion,  in 
whose  society  he  feels  so  happy.  He  is  longing  to  get  back 
to  her,  he  writes  in  1708,  'because  he  is  dull  without  her, 
and  there  is  nobody  to  take  care  of  his  shirts.'  Her  answer 
expresses  her  conviction  that  his  hair  must  be  very  ill- 
combed  in  her  absence.  He  answers  that  she  has  guessed 
aright,  but  that  if  she  will  only  come  he  will  find  some  old 
comb  or  other  with  which  to  put  things  in  order,  and  mean- 
while he  sends  her  a  lock  of  his  hair.  Frequently,  as  in 
former  years,  his  letters  were  accompanied  by  gifts.  In 
171 1,  there  is  a  watch  bought  at  Dresden;  in  17 17,  lace 
from  Mechlin  ;  on  another  occasion,  a  fox  and  two  pairs  of 
doves  sent  from  the  Gulf  of  Finland  ;  writing  from  Kron- 
stadt  in  1723,  he  apologises,  on  the  score  that  he  has  no 
money,  for  sending  her  nothing.  While  passing  through 
Antwerp,  he  sends  a  packet  covered  with  seals,  and  addressed 
to  Her  Majesty,  tJie  Tsarina  Catherine  Alexicicvna.  When 
the  box  was  opened,  all  SJiisJienkas  mother  found  in  it  was  a 
slip  of  paper  with  these  words  written  in  capital  letters  : 
'April  1st,  1717!'  Catherine  too  would  occasionally  send 
trifling  gifts,  such  as  fruit,  or  a  warm  waistcoat.  In  17 19, 
one  of  Peter's  letters  closes  with  the  expression  of  a  hope 
that  this  summer  will  be  the  last  they  will  have  to  spend 
apart.  Some  time  after,  he  sends  her  a  bunch  of  dried 
flowers,  and  a  newspaper  cutting,  containing  an  account  of 


276  PETER  THI-:  GREAT 

ail  lifted  couple,  a  husband  who  had  reached  the  age  of  126 
\car.s,  and  a  wife  onl)*  a  year  joungcr.  In  1724,  the  Tsar, 
arriving  jn  St.  Petersburg  in  the  summer  season,  and  finding 
that  Catherine  had  gone  to  one  of  his  many  country  houses, 
fcjrthwith  sent  a  yacht  to  bring  her  back,  and  wrote,  '  When 
I  went  into  my  rooms,  and  found  them  deserted,  I  felt  as  if 
I  must  rush  away  at  once.     It  is  all  so  cmpt)'  without  thee  ! ' 

Mis  absence  would  seem  to  have  affected  her  to  the  same 
extent.  Princess  Galitzin,  who  was  in  attendance  on 
her  at  Revel,  in  July  17 14,  addresses  the  following  ex- 
pressive note  to  the  Sovereign:  —  'Sire,  my  dear  Bati- 
ous/ika,  we  long  for  your  return  at  the  earliest  possible 
moment,  and  truly,  if  your  Majesty  delays  much  longer, 
my  life  will  grow  very  hard.  The  Tsarina  will  never 
deign  to  fall  asleej)  before  three  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
and  I  never  leave  her  Majesty,  and  Kirillovna  stands  beside 
her  bed  and  dozes.  From  time  to  time  the  Tsarina  conde- 
scends to  say, "Art  thou  asleep,  TuHousJika?"  (little  aunt), she 
answers,  "  No,  I'm  not  asleep,  I'm  looking  at  my  slippers," 
and  Maia  comes  and  goes  in  the  room,  and  makes  her  bed 
in  the  middle  of  the  room,  and  Matrena  walks  about  the 
rooms,  and  squabbles  with  everybody,  and  Krcstianovna 
stands  behind  the  chair  and  looks  at  the  Tsarina.  Thy 
return  will  release  me  from  the  sleeping  chamber ! '  ^ 

The  only  letters  belonging  to  the  first  period  o{  'Cd^  liaison, 
which  have  been  preserved,  are  those  addressed  by  the 
Sovereign,  in  common,  to  Catherine  and  to  Anisia  Kiril- 
lovna Tolstoi,  on  whom  he  bestowed  the  nickname  of  Aunt,' 
Catherine  he  called  '  Mother.'  He  wrote  the  Dutch  word 
Mudcr,\x\  Russian  characters.  Catherine  kept  that  nickname 
till  171 1,  after  which  Peter  speaks  of  her  in  more  and  more 
familiar,  affectionate,  and  personal  terms ;  Katicritioushka, 
Herzeiisfrciindchoi,  etc.  She  did  not  venture,  until  much 
later,  to  imitate  him  in  this  respect.  She  called  him  '  Your 
Majesty'  until  1718,  and  then  he  too  becomes  her  Hcrzcus- 
freitndchen,  her  Batiouslika,  or  simply  i)ici)i  Freuud  {yny 
friend).  On  one  occasion  she  even  goes  so  far  as  to  imitate 
his  waggish  ways,  and  address  her  letter,  in  German,  to 
'  His  Excellency,  the  very  illustrious  and  very  eminent 
Prince- General,  Inspector- General,  and  Knight  of  the 
crowned  Compass  and  Axe.' 

'  Peter's  Caliinct  jxipers,  porlfnlio  ii.  Xo.  2CX 


CATHERINE  277 

This  correspondence  never  has  been,  and  never  can  be, 
published  in  its  integrity.  Certain  portions  of  it  are  far  too 
coarse.  Peter  unscrupulously  indulged  in  obscenities  of 
thought  and  language,  which  are  quite  impossible  in  print ; 
and  Catherine  followed  his  example  with  an  air  of  the  most 
perfect  unconcern.  '  If  you  were  with  me  here/  she  writes  dur- 
ing one  of  his  absences,  '  there  would  very  soon  be  another 
Shis/iciika  ! '  This  is  the  general  tone  of  the  correspondence, 
but  its  actual  expression  is  frequently  far  less  modest.^ 

In  1724,  when  Peter  was  celebrating  the  anniversary  of  his 
marriage  at  Moscow,  he  himself  composed  the  set  piece  of 
fireworks,  to  be  lighted  under  the  Empress's  windows.  This 
displayed  his  cypher  and  hers  entwined,  within  a  heart,  sur- 
mounted by  a  crown,  and  surrounded  by  emblems  of  love. 
A  winged  figure,  intended  to  represent  Cupid,  bearing  a 
torch  and  all  his  other  symbols,  except  the  bandage  across 
the  eyes,  shot  across  the  darkness,  and  ignited  the  rockets. 
The  special  Cupid  which  would  seem  to  have  habitually 
presided  over  the  intercourse  of  these  two  lovers,  was  a 
wingless  one.  But  commonplace,  and  even  debased,  as  their 
affection  would  occasionally  appear,  it  still  has  certain 
sympathetic  and  touching  qualities.  It  is  replete  with 
artless,  full-flavoured  good  nature.  After  the  Peace  of 
Nystadt,  Peter  joked  his  wife  about  her  Livonian  origin, 
saying, '  According  to  the  terms  of  this  treaty,  I  am  to  return 
all  prisoners  to  the  King  of  Sweden  ;  I  don't  know  what  is 
to  become  of  thee?'  She  kissed  his  hand  and  answered  : 
'  I  am  your  servant,  do  with  me  as  you  will,  yet  I  do  not 
think  you  are  inclined  to  send  me  back.'  '  I  will  try,'  he 
replied,  '  to  settle  it  with  the  King  ! '  -  This  anecdote  may 
not  be  absolutely  true,  but  it  certainly  typifies  the  real 
nature  of  their  relations.  Yet  there  seems  to  have  been 
some  sl)-ness,  and  a  certain  amount  of  feminine  cunning,  about 
Catherine.  We  are  assured  that  when  she  was  staying  at 
Riga  with  the  Tsar,  she  contrived  to  show  him  an  old  parch- 
ment, drawn  from  the  archives  of  the  town,  containing  a 
prophecy  that  the  Russians  would  never  have  possession  of 
that  country  until  a  most  improbable  event — a  marriage 
between  a  Tsar  and  a  Livonian — had  taken  place.  Often  too,as 

^  See  Siemievski,  The  Empress  Catherine,  p.  89.    Bruckner,  Peter's  d.  Grossen 
Brief-iveehsel  mit  Catharina  (Raumers  Tasclienbuch,  5lh  Series). 
-  Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  p    132. 


278  pi:tp:r  the  great 

1  notice,  she  would  draw  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  success 
never  came  to  him  until  he  knew  her,  whereas,  since  that  event, 
he  had  gone  from  \ictory  to  victor}'.  This  was  firm,  histori- 
cal ground,  and  the  fact  was  much  more  hkely  to  impress 
the  Tsar's  sturdy  mind,  than  the  prophecy  above  referred  to. 

He  had  no  desire,  indeed,  to  send  back  the  prisoner  he  had 
taken  at  Maricnburg.  In  a  thousand  ways,  she  made  her- 
self agreeable,  useful,  indisj)ensable.  As  in  past  years,  she 
watched  her  lord's  amorous  caprices  with  a  vigilant,  though 
far  from  jealous,  eye,  solely  desirous  of  staving  off  too  serious 
consecjuences,  alwaj-s  interposing  at  the  right  moment.  Nar- 
tof  tells  the  story  of  a  fellow  country-woman  of  Catherine's, 
a  laundress  belonging  to  Narva,  who.se  attraction  for  the 
Sovereign  took  on  alarming  proportions.  Peter,  to  his  astonish- 
ment, beheld  the  girl,  one  da)-,  in  the  Tsarina's  room.  He 
pretended  not  to  recognise  her,  and  enquired  whence  she  came. 
Catherine  calmly  replied,  '  1  heard  so  much  of  her  beauty  and 
of  her  wit,  that  1  made  up  my  mind  to  take  her  into  my  ser- 
vice, without  consulting  you.'  The  Tsar  was  dumb,  and 
turned  his  attention  to  quite  a  different  quarter.  • 

Catherine  never  aspired  to  interfering  in  State  affairs,  she 
had  no  taste  for  intrigue.  '  As  for  the  Tsarina,'  writes  Campre- 
don,  in  1721,  'although  the  Tsar  is  most  attentive  to  her,  and 
is  full  of  tenderness  for  the  Princesses,  her  daughters,  she  has 
no  power  as  regards  public  business,  in  which  she  never  inter- 
feres. She  applies  herself  solely  to  keeping  the  Tsar's 
good  graces,  to  restraining  him,  to  the  best  of  her  ability, 
from  those  drinking  and  other  e.xcesses  which  have  greatly 
weakened  his  health,  and  to  calming  his  anger  when  it  seems 
ready  to  break  forth  against  any  particular  person.' 

Her  intervention  in  the  catastrophe  on  the  Pruth,  if  it  ever 
did  occur,  was  quite  an  isolated  case.  Her  correspondence 
with  her  husband  proves,  that  though  she  was  aware  of  his 
anxieties,  her  information  was  of  a  very  general  nature.  He 
writes  to  her  about  trifling  cominissions,  such  as  buying  wine 
or  cheese,  which  he  desires  to  give  away,  or  the  engagement 
of  foreign  artists  or  artisans.  His  tone  is  frequently  very  con- 
fidential, but  he  keeps  to  generalities,  and  very  seldom  enters 
into  detail.  In  1712,  he  writes:  'We  are  well,  thank  God, 
but  it  is  a  hard  life  ;  1  cannot  do  much  with  my  left  hand, 
and  my  right  has  to  hold  sword  and  pen  at  once.  Now 
thou  knowest  on  how  man)-  persons  I  can  reckon  for  help.' 


CATHERINE  279 

She  took  a  line,  and  a:;.sumcd  an  office,  her  choice  of  which 
proves  that  this  peasant-born  woman  had  a  most  wonderful 
and  instinctive  comprehension  of  her  true  position.  There 
is  a  hint  of  this,  in  the  French  diplomatic  document  w^hich  I 
have  just  quoted.  She  realised  that, — beside  the  great  Re- 
former playing  out  his  part  as  a  merciless  judge,  to  the  bitter 
end, — there  was  another  accessory  and  necessary  role,  instinct 
with  pity  and  mercy,  to  which  she,  the  humble  serf,  who  had 
sounded  every  depth  of  human  misery,  was  clearly  called.  She 
saw  that  if  she  did  this  work,  if  she  strove  to  win  pardon  for 
others,  her  own  sudden  elevation  would  be  more  willingly 
forgiven  her  ;  and  that  if,  amidst  the  spite  and  hatred  raised 
against  the  Tsar  by  the  violent  nature  of  his  reforms,  she  could 
gather  a  circle  of  grateful  sympathy  round  her  own  person, 
she  might  one  day,  if  some  change  of  fortu^ne  overtook  her, 
find  in  it  a  protection  and  a  welcome  shelter.  She  came  to 
need  it,  and  did  thus  find  a  shelter,  and  more  than  a  shelter, 
after  Peter's  death. 

Like  Lefort,  in  the  old  days,  but  with  infinitely  more 
consistency  and  tact,  she  constantly  interposed  in  the  sanguin- 
ary conflict  which  the  Tsar's  chosen  work  had  roused  between 
himself  and  his  subjects  ; — a  conflict  marked  by  the  daily  use 
of  the  axe,  the  gallows,  and  the  knout.  Peter  was  occasion- 
ally reduced  to  concealing  the  punishments  he  decreed  from 
his  wife's  knowledge.  Unfortunately,  as  it  would  seem,  she 
did  not  continue  satisfied  with  the  distant  and  ultimate  re- 
ward this  line  of  conduct  promised.  She  began,  after  a  time, 
to  seek  for  more  immediate  profit.  She  grew  to  imagine,  or 
she  was  made  to  believe,  that  she  must  settle  her  fortunes  on 
a  firm  financial  basis.  She  was  convinced,  or  allowed  herself 
to  be  persuaded,  that  the  day  would  come  when  she  would 
need  money — and  a  great  deal  of  money — to  pay  for 
necessary  co-operation,  or  anticipate  probable  failure.  And 
then  she  began  to  fleece  all  those  who  sought  her  protection. 
Any  one  who  desired  to  escape  exile  or  death,  through  her 
intervention,  was  forced  to  open  his  purse.  Thus  she  amassed 
large  sums,  which,  after  Menshikof's  example,  and  probably  by 
his  advice,  she  invested,  under  assumed  names,  at  Amsterdam 
and  Hamburg.  This  intrigue  soon  attracted  Peter's  atten- 
tion, and  his  discovery  of  it  was  probably  not  unconnected 
with  the  clouds  that  darkened  the  close  of  their  conjugal 
existence.  In  1718,  Catherine  undertook  to  save  Prince 
19 


28o  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Gagarin,  the  Governor  -  General  of  Siberia,  who  had 
been  found  guilty  of  enormous  jjeculations,  from  the 
gallows.  He  paid  her  considerable  sums,  part  of  which 
were  emplo\-ed  in  corrupting  Prince  Volkonski,  to  whom  the 
enquiry  had  been  entrusted, — a  scarred  old  soldier,  who,  in 
spite  of  his  glorious  career,  was  not  proof  against  such  vile 
temptations.  When  Volkonski  was  arrested,  he  defended 
himself  by  alleging  that  he  had  not  dared  to  repulse  the 
Tsarina's  advances,  for  fear  of  making  a  quarrel  between  her 
and  the  Tsar.  To  this,  Peter  is  said  to  have  made  the 
following  characteristic  reply  :  '  Idiot !  you  would  have  made 
no  quarrel  between  us!  I  should  only  have  given  my  wife  a 
sound  conjugal  {)unishment.  She  will  get  it  now,  and  \-ou 
will  be  hung  ! '  ^ 

III 

The  tragic  close  of  the  quarrel  between  the  Tsar  and  his 
eldest  son  was,  to  the  stepmother  of  the  unhappy  Prince,  a 
crowning  victory,  a  sudden  impulse  towards  the  giddiest 
heights  of  destiny.  She  has  been  accused,  and  not  unnatur- 
ally, of  having  had  a  more  or  less  direct  share  in  bringing 
about  this  daioucnicnt.  To  this  point  I  shall  have  to  refer 
in  a  later  chapter.  It  was  her  own  son  who  thus  became 
heir  presumptive  to  the  throne,  and  another  bond  was  forged 
between  herself  and  the  father  of  the  boy.  She  even  suc- 
ceeded, to  a  certain  extent,  in  forcing  her  family,  obscure 
Lithuanian  serfs,  upon  the  Tsar.  Chance  is  reported  to  have 
helped  her  in  this  matter.  A  postillion,  working  on  the  road, 
between  St.  Petersburg  and  Riga,  having  been  ill-treated  by 
a  traveller,  loudly  comj^lained,  and  affirmed  his  close  connec- 
tion with  persons  in  the  highest  quarters.  He  was  arrested, 
and  the  facts  laid  before  the  Tsar,  who  ordered  enquiry  to 
be  made,  and  found  himself  unexpectedly  enriched  with  a 
whole  tribe  of  brothers  and  sisters-in-law,  nephews  and 
nieces,  whom  Catherine  had  somewhat  too  easily  forgotten. 
The  postillion,  Fcodor  Skovronski,  was  her  eldest  brother. 
He  had  married  a  peasant  woman,  by  whom  he  had  three 
sons  and  three  daughters.  Another  brother,  still  a  bachelor, 
worked  in  the  fields.  The  eldest  sister  was  called  Catherine, 
— the  second,  who  had  been  raised  to  the  throne  under  that 

*  Dolgoroukof's  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  31. 


CATHERINE  281 

name,  had  formerly  been  known  as  Martha.  The  real 
Catherine,  it  was  said,  lived  at  Revel,  and  there  carried  on  a 
shameful  trade.  A  third  sister,  Anne,  was  the  wife  of  an 
honest  serf,  Michael-Joachim,  a  fourth  had  married  a  freed 
peasant,  Simon-Henry,  who  had  settled  at  Revel,  and  worked 
as  a  shoemaker. 

Peter  caused  the  postillion  to  be  brought  to  St.  Petersburg, 
confronted  him  with  his  sister,  in  the  house  of  a  dienshtcliik\ 
named  Shepielof,  and  when  his  identity  had  been  established, 
gave  him  a  pension,  and  sent  him  back  to  the  country.  He 
took  measures  to  ensure  a  modest  competence  to  each 
member  of  the  family,  and  made  a  bargain  that  he  was  to 
hear  no  more  of  them.  The  Revel  sister-in-law,  who  was 
too  compromising  to  be  endured,  was  put  under  lock  and 
key.  Catherine  had  to  wait  for  the  Tsar's  death,  before  she 
could  do  anything  more  for  her  own  people.  When  that 
occurred,  the  ex-postillion,  the  ex-shoemaker,  and  all  the 
other  peasants,  male  and  female,  appeared  at  St.  Petersburg, 
disguised  under  new  names  and  titles,  and  dressed  in  court 
apparel.  Simon-Henry  became  Count  Simon  Leontievitch 
Hendrikof,  Michael-Joachim  was  called  Count  Michael 
Efimovitch  Efimovski,  and  so  with  the  rest.  All  were  given 
large  fortunes.^  A  Count  Skovronski  made  a  great  figure  in 
the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  married  his  daughter  to  a  Prince 
Sapieha,  a  member  of  an  illustrious  Polish  family,  well 
known  in  France. 

But  meanwhile,  Catherine's  fortunes  rose  steadily  higher. 
A  collective  vote  of  the  Senate  and  the  Synod,  given  on  the 
23rd  of  December  1728,  endowed  her  with  the  title  of 
Empress.  Two  years  later,  Peter  himself  decided  on  the 
formal  coronation  of  the  ci-deva7it  servant  girl.  This  cere- 
mony was  quite  a  novel  one  in  Russia,  and  surrounding 
circumstances  imparted  considerable  importance  to  it.  The 
history  of  the  country  only  furnishes  one  precedent  for  such 
a  step — the  coronation  of  Marina  Mniszech  just  before  her 
marriage  with  Uimitri.  But  the  object,  in  that  case,  was  to 
give  a  kind  of  presumptive  consecration  to  the  rights  of  the 
haughty  daughter  of  the  Polish  magnate,  imposed  on  the 
Russian  nation  by  the  victorious  policy  of  the  Waza. 
Dimitri,  who  was  supported  by  the  armies  of  the  Republic, 
merely  as,  and  because  he  was,  Marina's  husband,  took  quite 
^  Karnovilcli,  Qteat  Russian  Fcituius,  p.  179. 


282  PETER  THE  GREAT 

a  secondai}'  jjlace.  Since  those  daj-s,  no  Tsarina  had  been 
more  than  the  Tsar's  wife,  none  had  ever  received  any  poH- 
tical  investiture  or  preroL^^ative.  liut  the  death,  in  1719,  of 
the  sole  heir  to  the  crown,  had  raised  the  question  of  the 
succession.  During  the  followinc^  years  it  was  constantly  to 
the  front.  When,  in  172 1,  the  Peace  of  Nystadt  conferred 
some  leisure  on  the  Sovereign,  this  question  became,  for 
a  time,  his  chief  anxiety.  Shafirof  and  Ostermann,  in 
obedience  to  his  commands,  held  several  private  conferences 
with  Camprcdon,  in  the  course  of  which  they  proposed 
an  alliance  with  France,  based  on  a  guarantee  as  to  the 
succession  to  the  Russian  throne  to  be  given  by  the  French 
king.  For  whose  benefit  ?  Campredon  imagined  Peter  had 
chosen  his  eldest  daughter,  whom  he  was  supposed  to  intend 
to  marry  to  one  of  his  subjects  and  near  relations, — probably 
to  a  Naryshkin.  This  opinion  was  confirmed  by  Shafirof^ 
The  most  varied  suppositions  on  the  subject  were  current 
amongst  the  general  public,  up  to  the  period  of  the  corona- 
tion. The  novel  nature  of  that  event  seemed,  in  the  eyes  of 
the  majority,  to  settle  the  question  in  Catherine's  favour. 
This  idea  was  finally  shared  by  Campredon  himself.- 

The  crown,  which  was  specially  ordered  for  the  occasion, 
was  far  more  magnificent  than  any  used  by  former  Tsars.  It 
was  adorned  with  diamonds  and  pearls  ;  there  was  an  enor- 
mous ruby  on  the  top ;  it  weighed  four  pounds,  and  was 
valued  at  one  and  a  half  millions  of  roubles.  It  was  made 
at  St.  Petersburg,  by  a  Russian  jeweller,  but  the  new  capital 
was  quite  unequal  to  supplying  the  Tsarina's  dress.  This 
was  sent  from  Paris,  and  cost  4000  roubles.  Peter  himself 
set  the  crown  on  his  wife's  head.  Catherine  knelt  before  the 
altar,  weeping,  and  would  have  embraced  the  Tsar's  knees. 
He  raised  her  smilingly,  and  invested  her  with  the  orb,  the 
symbol  of  .sovereignty  [dierjaiui).  But  he  kept  the  sceptre, 
the  token  of  power,  in  his  own  hand.  When  the  Tsarina  left 
the  church,  she  entered  a  coach,  sent,  like  her  dress,  from  Paris, 
richly  gilt  and  painted, and  surmounted  b}-an  Imperial  crown.^ 

This  ceremony  was  performed  on  the  7th  —  19th  — 
May.  Just  six  months  later,  an  event  took  place  in  the 
Winter  Palace,  which  set  the  Tsarina,  crowned  and  anointed 

^  Campredon's  Despatches,  Oct.  29,  Nov.    17  and  21,    1721  (French  Foreign 
Office).  -  Despatch,  dated  May  26th,  1724 

•  Biischings-Magazin,  vol.   .\xii.  pp.  447,  463.     (Jolikof,  vol.  x.  p.  64. 


CATHERINE  283 

as  she  was,  on  the  very  brink  of  a  precipice.  Peter,  on  his 
return  from  an  excursion  to  Revel,  received  warning  of  a 
suspicious  intimacy  which  had  existed  for  some  time  be- 
tween Catherine  and  one  of  her  chamberlains.  It  is  curious 
that  this  warning  should  not  have  reached  him  sooner,  for  the 
Tsarina's  liason  with  young  William  Mons  had,  according 
to  reliable  witnesses,  long  been  in  public  knowledge.^  Peter 
might  easily  have  gathered  this  fact  from  a  secret  examina- 
tion of  the  chamberlain's  correspondence.  He  would  have 
found  letters  signed  by  the  greatest  persons  in  the  country, 
Ministers,  ambassadors,  and  even  bishops,  who  all  addressed 
the  young  man  in  terms  which  clearly  indicated  the  place 
they  believed  him  to  hold  in  the  imperial  household.-  But  the 
inquisitorial  policy  of  the  great  Tsar  had  begun  to  bear  its 
final  fruit, — the  consequence  and  penalty  of  the  excess  to 
which  it  had  been  carried.  Universal  espionage  had  engen- 
dered universal  watchfulness  against  possible  spies.  Men 
did  as  they  were  done  by,  and  Peter  paid  for  his  too  great 
eagerness  to  know  the  secrets  of  other  houses,  by  being  left 
in  ignorance  of  what  was  occurring  in  his  own. 

Mons  was  the  brother  of  Peter's  former  mistress.  He  was 
one  of  that  race  of  bold  and  successful  adventurers  of  whom, 
so  iar  as  Russia  was  concerned,  Lefort  was  the  historical  an- 
cestor. His  education  was  of  the  most  scanty  description, 
but  he  was  intelligent,  shrevv^d,  a  gay  companion,  and,  occa- 
sionally, something  of  a  poet.  He  was  very  superstitious, 
and  wore  four  rings  :  one  of  pure  gold,  one  of  lead,  one  of 
iron,  and  the  last  of  copper.  These  were  his  talismans,  and 
the  gold  ring  stood  for  love.  One  of  his  sisters,  Matrena, 
had  married  Fcodor  Nikolaicvitch  Balk,  who  belonged  to  a 
branch  of  the  ancient  Livonian  house  of  the  Balken,  which 
had  been  settled  in  Russia  since  1650.  This  Balk  held  the 
rank  of  Major-General,  and  was  Governor  of  Riga,  and  his 
wife,  who  had  gained  great  favour  with  Catherine,  had  been 
one  of  her  ladies  of  honour  and  her  closest  confidant,  ever 
since  the  coronation.  Matrena  looked  after  her  brother's 
interests,  and  arranged  the  meetings  between  the  lovers. 
Nor  was  this  all.  She  had  contrived,  with  the  assistance 
of  Anna  Fcodorovna  loushkof,  another  great  favourite  of 
the  Tsarina's,  of  Princess  Anne  of  Courland,  and  of  some 

^  Caniprcd(in's  Despatch,  Dec.  9th,  1724  (I"'aris  Foreign  Office). 
"^  .Sicmievski,   The  Euiprcss  Catherine,  \>.  109. 


284  PETER  THE  GREAT 

other  ladies,  to  set  up  a  kind  of  camarilla,  and  little  by  little 
the  Tsar  had  been  hemmed  in  with  moviiiL^  quicksands  of 
jobber}'  and  intriL;ue,  of  hidden  influences,  and  obscure 
machinations.  Weakened  as  he  was  by  illness,  and  harried 
by  haunlin,L(  suspicion,  his  actions  were  literally  |)aral)'sed. 
William  Mons  was  the  soul  of  this  circle,  and  himself  took 
a  woman's  name  to  veil  his  correspondence  with  a  certain 
lady  named  Soltykof,  who  was  one  of  its  members.^ 

Female  i;()vernnient  was  already  beginning  to  take  up  its 
place  in  Russia. 

Peter's  powers,  both  as  judge  and  as  inquisitor,  failerl  him 
here,  completely  and  simultaneously.  He  long  remained  in 
ignorance  of  what  he  ought  to  have  known,  and  even  when 
he  was  warned,  he  could  not  strike,  and  mete  out  just  punish- 
ment for  the  most  unpardonable  offence  which  could  have 
been  offered  him.  The  first  intimation  reached  him  from  an 
anonymous  source.  A  long-prepared  trap  was  laid,  so  some 
people  assert.  Catherine  is  supposed  to  have  dallied,  one 
lovely  moonlight  night,  within  an  arbour  in  her  garden,  be- 
fore which  Matr^na  Balk  mounted  guard,  and  there  Peter 
discovered  her.-  I  regret  to  have  to  point  out  that  this 
summer  scene  is  at  variance  with  the  season  of  the  year 
imposed  by  historical  accuracy, —  the  month  of  November, 
and,  in  all  probability,  at  least  twenty  degrees  of  frost. 
According  to  official  documents,  Peter  learnt  the  fact 
on  the  5th  of  November.  The  informer,  a  subordinate 
of  Mons,  who  was  quickly  discovered,  was  at  once 
arrested.  The  Tsar  held  a  hasty  enquiry  in  the  torture- 
chamber  of  the  fortress  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  but,  con- 
trary to  the  general  expectation,  he  failed  to  act  with  his 
usual  lightning  rapidity.  Though  both  his  honour  and  his 
life  were  affected, — for  the  informer  had  spoken  of  a  plot, 
and  intended  attempt  on  his  life, —  he  seemed  to  hesitate. 
He  concealed  his  rage.  It  almost  looked  as  though  this 
man, — impatient  and  impulsive  beyond  all  others,  as  a  rule, 
— were  .seeking  to  gain  time.  On  the  20th  of  November,  he 
returned  to  the  palace  without  a  sign  of  perturbation  on  h's 
countenance,  supped  as  usual  with  the  Empress,  and  held  a 
long  and  familiar  conversation  with  Mons,  who,  like  every- 
one else,  felt  quite  reassured.  At  a  somewhat  early  hour  he 
complained  of  weariness  and  enquired  the  hour.     Catherine 

^  Mordovtsef,  p.  130.  -  .Sclierer,  vol,  iv.  p.  78. 


CATHERINE  285 

consulted  her  repeating  watch  —  the  one  he  had  sent  her 
from  Dresden — and  replied,  '  Nine  o'clock.'  With  a  sudden 
flash  of  anger — his  first — he  took  the  watch,  opened  the  case, 
gave  the  hands  three  turns,  and,  in  the  well-known  tone 
which  no  one  ever  dared  to  answer,  he  replied,  '  You  arc 
quite  mistaken  !  It  is  midnight,  and  every  one  will  go  to 
bed  ! ' 

The  lion  was  awake  again,  with  his  mighty  roar  and  cruel 
claws, — the  tyrant  who  claimed  to  rule  every  one  and  every- 
thing, and  even  time  itself! 

The  company  separated,  and,  a  few  moments  later,  Mons 
was  arrested  in  his  own  room,  Peter  himself,  so  we  are  told, 
acting  as  his  jailor  and  his  examining  judge.  But  through- 
out all  the  examination,  Catherine's  name  was  never  men- 
tioned. He  deliberately  put  her  outside  the  question.  The 
enquiry  resulted  in  the  culprit's  conviction  of  other  guilty 
practices, — of  abuse  of  influence  and  criminal  traffic,  in  which 
Matrena  Balk  was  also  involved.  For  two  successive  days, 
on  the  13th  and  14th  of  November,  a  crier  passed  through 
the  streets  of  St.  Petersburg,  calling  upon  all  those  persons 
who  had  paid  bribes  to  declare  them,  under  pain  of  the  most 
heavy  punishment.  But  Mons  himself  gave  full  information. 
In  later  years,  he  was  described,  like  Glebof,  as  having  stoic- 
ally poured  forth  every  other  sort  of  avowal,  in  his  desire  to 
protect  his  mistress's  honour.  Such  heroism,  had  it  really 
existed,  can  scarcely  have  been  of  the  finest  temper.  Even 
in  Peter's  reign,  there  was  less  risk  for  the  man  who  acknow- 
ledged embezzlement,  than  for  him  who  posed  as  the  Tsar's 
rival  in  love.  This  fact  had  been  proved  by  Glebofs  terrible 
end,  and  William,  handsome  as  he  was,  seems  to  have  had 
nothing  of  the  hero  about  him.  According  to  the  minutes 
of  the  official  enquiry,  he  fainted  away  as  soon  as  he  was 
arrested  and  brought  into  the  Tsar's  presence,  and  he  ended 
by  confessing  whatever  he  was  desired  to  confess.  There 
cannot  possibly  have  been  any  difficulty  about  drawing  in- 
formation from  him,  for,  as  we  are  significantly  informed,  he 
was  never  put  to  the  question.  As  fur  Matrciia  Balk,  she 
made  some  resistance  at  first,  but  the  first  blow  from  the 
knout  quite  broke  it  down. 

Mons  was  beheaded  on  the  28th  of  November,  1724,  The 
Saxon  Resident  in  St.  Petersburg  declares  that,  before  the 
execution,  Peter  went  to  see  him,  and  expressed  his  great 


286  PETER  THE  GREAT 

rcfjret  at  being  obliged  to  part  with  him.  The  young  man 
went  bravely  to  the  scaffdld.  The  great  Tsar's  reign,  like 
another  and  later  reign  of  terror,  at  all  events  taught  men 
how  to  die.  The  stor\'  that  the  guilty  man  begged  his  e.\e- 
cutioner  to  take  a  miniature  framed  in  diamonds  from  his 
pocket,  to  destroy  the  picture  (Catherine's  portrait)  and  to 
keep  the  setting,  is  an  evident  and  clumsy  invention.^  We 
may  take  it  for  certain  that  prisoners,  in  those  days,  were 
searched  within  their  prisons.  Matrcna  Balk  was  given 
eleven  blows  with  the  knout,  did  not  die  under  them  (which 
proves  that  she  was  tough),  was  sent  for  life  to  Siberia,  and 
returned  after  Peter's  death.  Nothing  was  perpetual  at  that 
period.  Once  a  culprit  escaped  with  life,  he  or  she  had  a 
fair  chance  of  rising  again,  even  out  of  the  darkest  depths. 
Around  the  place  of  execution,  placards,  bearing  the  names 
of  ail  the  persons  with  whom  Mons  and  his  sister  had  done 
business,  were  fixed  on  posts.  The  whole  hierarchy  of 
Russian  official  life,  headed  by  the  High  Chancellor  Golov- 
kin,  was  there  represented,  coupled  with  the  names  of 
Prince  Menshikof,  the  Duke  of  Holstein,  and  the  Tsarina 
Prascovia  Feodorovna.^ 

Catherine  behaved,  all  through  this  ordeal,  with  a  courage 
which  is  almost  terrifying.  On  the  day  of  the  execution,  she 
affected  the  greatest  cheerfulness.  In  the  evening,  she  sent 
for  the  princesses,  summoned  their  dancing  -  master,  and 
practised  the  minuet  with  them.  Ikit  in  one  of  Campredon  s 
despatches  I  find  these  words :  '  Although  the  Princess  hides 
her  grief,  as  far  as  that  is  possible,  it  is  clearly  written  on  her 
countenance  ...  so  much  so  that  all  the  world  wonders 
what  is  going  to  hap[)en  to  her.'  ^ 

On  that  very  day,  she  had  a  somewhat  disagreeable  surprise. 
A  ukase  written  by  the  Tsar's  own  hand,  and  addressed  to 
all  the  Administrative  Hodies,  forbade  them,  in  consequence 
of  the  abuses  which  had  arisen  ivithout  the  Tsarinas  knozi'- 
Icdgc,  to  obey  any  order  or  recommendation  of  hers  in  future. 
At  the  same  time  the  offices  through  which  her  private 
affairs  were  directed,  were  laid  under  an  interdict ;  her 
fortune  was  taken  from  her,  under  j)retext  of  its  being 
managed  for  her,  and  she  found  herself  so  pinched  for 
money,  that  when  she  wanted  to  give  a  thousand  ducats  to  a 

1  Cniscnst  ilpe.  Dc-  A'tfs'u/it'  //,>/' {]]nmhm\i,  1857).  p.  68. 

2  MdtilovtsL-f   pp   48,49.         •' Si.  rclcislnirj,',  Dec.  9tli,  I7.?4  (I'orci  n  OOicc). 


CATHERINE  287 

dienshtchik,  named  Vassili  Petrovitch,  who  was  in  possession, 
for  the  moment,  of  the  Tsar's  ear,  she  was  obh'gcd  to  borrow 
it  from  her  ladies.^ 

And  the  next  day  brought  her  fresh  misery.  The  Tsar, 
we  are  told,  took  his  wife  out  with  him  in  a  sledge,  and  the 
Imperial  couple  were  seen  to  pass  close  to  the  scaffold  on 
which  Mons'  corpse  still  lay  exposed.  The  Tsarina's  dress 
brushed  the  dead  body.  Catherine  never  turned  her  head 
nor  ceased  to  smile.  Then  Peter  went  further.  The  dead 
man's  head,  enclosed  in  a  vessel  of  spirits  of  wine,  was  placed 
in  a  prominent  position  in  the  empress'  apartment.  Cathe- 
rine endured  its  horrible  proximity,  and  preserved  her  ap- 
parent calm.  In  vain  the  Tsar  raged.  He  broke  a  magnifi- 
cent Venetian  glass  with  his  fist,  saying, — '  Thus  will  I  treat 
thee  and  thine!'-  She  answered,  quite  unmoved,  'You  have 
destroyed  one  of  the  chief  ornaments  of  your  dwelling.  Do 
you  think  you  have  increased  its  charm  ? '  She  contrived 
thus  to  subdue  and  control  him,  but  their  relations 
continued  strained.  On  the  19th  of  December,  1724,  Lefort 
wrote  in  a  despatch,  *  They  hardly  speak  to  each  other  ;  they 
no  longer  eat  nor  sleep  together.'  And  at  the  same  time, 
public  attention  was  generally  attracted  to  Maria  Kantemir. 
Peter  was  with  her  every  day.  Then  it  was,  so  the  world 
believed,  that  he  learned  the  truth  of  what  had  happened  at 
Astrakhan,  where,  as  my  readers  will  recollect,  the  hopes  of 
the  Princess,  and,  it  may  be,  of  her  lover  as  well,  had  been 
overthrown  by  a  mysterious  miscarriage.  The  doctor  who 
had  attended  the  young  girl,  a  Greek  named  Palikala,  had 
been  bribed  ;  '  By  whose  hand  ? '  he  enquired — and  the 
answer  rose  of  itself  to  the  outraged  husband's  lips. 

Catherine,  according  to  general  opinion,  was  utterly  lost. 
Villebois  declares  that  Peter  planned  a  trial,  modelled  on 
that  of  Henry  VHI.,  and  only  temporised  so  as  to  ensure 
the  future  of  his  children  by  his  unfaithful  wife.  He  hurried 
on  the  marriage  of  his  elder  daughter,  Anne,  with  the  Duke 
of  Holstein,  and  caused  overtures  to  be  made  for  the  union 
of  the  second,  Elizabeth,  with  a  French  prince,  or  even  with 
the  King  of  France  himself  But  this  plan,  which  seemed  to 
be  taking  shape,  and  was  irresistibly  attractive  to  the  Tsar, 
furnished  an  all-powerful  argument  for  sparing  Catherine. 

'  fiuschin<^s- Magazin,   vol.   xi.    p.  494.     Description  sent  by  the    Emperor's 

Envoy,  Rahuiin. 


288  PETER  THE  GREAT 

ToIstoY  and  Ostcrmaiiii,  who  were  in  negotiation  with 
Campredon,  laid  the  strongest  stress  upon  it.  The  King  of 
France,  they  said,  would  never  be  induced  to  marry  the 
daughter  of  a  second  Anne  Boleyn  !  ^ 

But  Catherine's  lucky  star  was  to  carry  her  through.  On 
the  i6th  of  January,  1725,  signs  of  a  reconciliation,  only 
skin-deep,  perhaps,  and  somewhat  ungracious,  on  Peter's 
side,  but  yet  significant  enough,  were  generally  observed. 
Lefort  writes,  '  The  Tsarina  has  made  a  long  and  ample 
Fuss/all  (genuflection)  before  the  Tsar,  to  obtain  remission 
of  her  faults.  The  conversation  lasted  three  hours,  and 
they  even  supped  together,  after  which  they  parted.'  Less 
than  a  month  afterwards,  Peter  was  dead,  and  carried  with 
him  to  his  tomb,  the  secret  of  his  anger,  and  of  the  venge- 
ance which  he  may  have  been  nursing,  and  preparing  in 
secret.  I  must  not,  in  this  place,  dilate  upon  the  political 
use  Catherine  made  of  this  event.  Her  subsequent  private 
life  justified,  only  too  clearly,  the  jealous  anxiety  which 
poisoned  the  last  days  of  the  great  Tsar.  We  must  suppose 
that  after  twenty  years  of  continuous  efifort,  and  never- 
ceasing  watchfulness,  during  which  all  her  faculties  were 
incessantly  concentrated  on,  and  strained  toward?,  the  one 
end  and  aim,  which  she  at  last  attained,  there  was  a  sort 
of  suddc-i  weakening  of  the  moral  spring,  and  a  simultaneous 
leaping  up  of  her  long  repressed  taste  for  coarse  sensuality, 
love  of  vulgar  debauch,  and  vile  instincts,  physical  and 
moral.  She,  who  had  done  so  much  to  restrain  her  husband 
from  nocturnal  orgies,  ended  by  drinking  all  night  long,  and 
till  9  o'clock  in  the  morning,  with  her  casual  lovers, — Loewen- 
walde,  Devier,  and  Sapieha.  Her  reign,  which,  happily  for 
Russia,  only  lasted  sixteen  months,  was  a  mere  casting 
of  the  sovereign  power  to  Menshikof,  and  to  short-lived 
favourites,  who  scrambled  with  him  for  every  morsel  of 
profit.  The  whilom  devoted,  helpful,  and  even  heroic 
partner  of  the  great  Tsar,  became  a  mere  Comedy  Queen, 
a  base-born  peasant,  carried  by  some  improbable  chance  up 
to  the  throne,  and  there  taking  her  pleasure  after  her  own 
low  fashion. 

'  See  for  all  this  episode,  Solovief,  vol.  xviii.  p.  245  ;  Scherer,  vol.  iv.  p.  18, 
etc.  ;  Sbornik,  vol.  lii.  p  90(Lep()rt);  Busi/iiHi;s-AJa!^'iiznt,  vol.  xi.  ]>.  490,  etc. 
(Rabutin) ;  Villebois'  Mimoirs  (manuscript,  in  the  Bibliolheque  Nalionale, 
Paris). 


PART    III 
HIS    WORK 


BOOK  I— EXTERNAL  STRUGGLE— WAR 
AND  DIPLOMACY 

CHAPTER    I 

FROM    NARVA   TO    POLTAVA,    170O-I709 

I.  Traditional  Policy,  internal  and  external  —  Peter  begins  with  the  outside — 
Russian  ambition  and  enterprise  oscillated  between  the  North  and  the 
South — The  Emperor's  refusal  drives  Peter  to  choose  the  North  —  The 
interview  at  Rawa — Intercourse  with  Augustus — The  quadruple  alliance 

—  Patkul  —  Peter  resolves  to  make  common  cause  with  Saxony  and 
Denmark  against  Sweden,  but  awaits  the  signature  of  peace  with  Turkey 
— The  Treaty  of  Preobrajenskoie^News  from  Constantinople  —  On  the 
march  to  Narva — Arrival  of  Charles  Xii. — Peter's  flight — The  catastrophe. 

II.  The  Tsar's  pusillanimity  and  distress — Charles' advance  on  Poland  gives  him 
time  to  collect  himself,  and  drives  him  into  closer  alliance  with  Augustus 
— More  war  preparations — The  interview  at  Birze — Fresh  reverses  and 
earliest  successes — -Peter  at  the  mouth  of  the  Neva — 'The  Key  of  the 
Sea '—St.  Petersburg — Peter  takes  possession  of  Ingria  and  Livonia,  and 
Augustus  loses  Poland — Preparations  for  the  decisive  struggle. 

II.  A  Diplomatic  Campaign — Search  for  a  Mediator — Prince  Galitzin  at 
Vienna  —  Matvieief  at  the  Hague  and  in  Paris — -Prince  Dimitri  Galitzin 
at  Constantinople — An  alliance  negotiated  at  Berlin — Patkul's  career  and 
death  —  The  Swede  triumphs  over  the  Livonian  —  Arved  Horn  — 
Altranstadt  — The  defection  of  Augustus — Diplomatic  duplicity  —  The 
Battle  of  Kalisz — The  two  Sovereigns  attempt  to  obtain  a  separate  peace 

—  Aurora  von  Koenigsmarck  in  the  camp  of  Charles  xil.  —  Peter's 
Envoys  and  Emissaries  to  European  Courts — A  negative  result — Peter  is 
left  alone  to  face  Charles — He  resolves  to  fight  on  his  own  ground. 

;v.  Charles  xii.'s  Plan  of  Campaign — Mazeppa — The  first  obstacle — The  Het- 
man  hesitates — Loeuenhaupt's  march  delayed — The  summer  goes  by — 
Prospect  of  a  winter  Campaign. 

V.  Chnrles  marches  southward — Victory  at  Holovtchin  —  Loewenhaupt's 
disaster  at  Liesna — Famine — Mazeppa  makes  up  his  mind — Too  late  ! — 
He  loses  the  Ukraine — The  Siege  of  Poltava — Victory  or  death — 
Demoralisation  of  the  Sweetish  army— Charles  wounded — Peter  increases 
his  chances  of  victory — The  encounter — Defeat  of  the  Swedes — Its 
consequences — The  ruins  of  the  past,  and  the  Russia  of  the  future. 


Peter    the    Great    was   the   heir   and   the  follower  of 

predecessors  whose  merit  has  been  too  easily  forgotten.     He 


292  PETER  THE  GREAT 

was  certainly,  and  incomparably,  their  superior,  although,  in 
certain  respects,  he  lacked  completeness.  From  these 
predecessors  he  inherited  a  double  programme  of  internal 
reform,  and  external  expansion.  He  first  turned  his 
attention  to  the  latter. 

My  readers  will  readily  understand  that  I  have  not 
allowed  myself  to  be  wholly  swayed,  in  the  arrangement  of 
this  book,  by  a  desire  for  chronological  exactness.  The 
greater  number  of  the  reforms  which  changed  the  whole 
face  of  eighteenth  century  Russia,  politically,  economical!}-, 
and  socially,  belonged  to  the  last  )'cars  of  Peter's  reign. 
This  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  their  importance,  from  the 
historic  point  of  view,  far  outweighs  that  of  the  victory  of 
Poltava  and  the  Conquest  of  the  Baltic.  The  foremost  place 
in  this  work  is  not  occupied  by  the  general  minutiae  of  dates. 
Quite  a  different  consideration  has  inspired  me.  I  do  not  at 
all  believe  that  the  long  succession  of  battles  and  negotia- 
tions, which,  until  1721,  almost  entirely  absorbed  the  Re- 
former's activity,  were  the  preliminary  condition  which 
must  necessarily  have  preceded  his  reforms.  I  am,  on  the 
contrary,  convinced,  and  I  will  endeavour  to  prove  it,  that 
they  were  the  indirect,  but  inevitable,  or,  as  some  may  prefer 
to  say,  the  providential,  outcome  of  that  struggle.  In  other 
words,  the  existence  of  the  reforms  did  not  depend  on  the 
war.  But  without  them,  the  war  could  not  have  been 
carried  on.  Thus,  all  I  have  done  is  to  put  the  plough 
behind  the  oxen. 

From  the  year  1693,  to  1698,  Peter,  whether  in  Holland 
or  in  P^ngland,  at  Voroneje  or  Archangel,  had  turned  his 
first  endeavours  to  becoming  a  first-rate  seaman,  a  thorough 
pilot,  carpenter,  and  artillery  man.  And  wh)- .-•  P'irst  and 
foremost  because  it  amused  him.  This  is  clear.  He  pla)ed 
at  being  a  soldier  and  a  sailor,  but,  by  degrees,  a  more 
serious  idea, — the  consciousness  of  his  ancestral  traditions 
and  the  duties  they  imposed  upon  him — was  combined  with 
mere  amusement,  and,  in  the  end,  reality  won  the  day.  But 
this  reality  was  actual  war.  PVom  1700  to  1709,  his  one 
object, — and  he  had  no  time  to  think  of  any  other, — was  to 
vanquish  Charles  XII.,  or  die  fighting  him.  From  1709  to 
1721,  his  life  was  one  ceaseless  struggle,  as  much  to  obtain 
an  advantageous  peace,  as  to  extricate  himself  from  the 
fresh  difficulties  and  dangers  into  which  his  own  presump- 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,  1700-1709  293 

tuousness,  and  over-confidence,  had  thrown  him.  And  here 
we  see  the  result.  The  Tsar,  in  the  pursuance  of  the  course 
on  which  he  had  so  thoughtlessly  entered,  was  driven  to  call 
upon  his  country  for  an  amount  of  assistance  far  beyond 
anything  that  Russian  resources,  in  their  then  condition, 
political,  economic,  or  social,  were  capable  of  furnishing. 
The  ancient  foundations  of  the  Muscovite  edifice  snapped 
and  crumbled,  weighed  down  on  one  side,  and  undermined 
on  the  other,  by  the  huge  weight  cast  on  them,  and  the 
enormous  effort  demanded.  Thus  an  abyss  opened  which 
had  to  be  instantly  filled,  no  matter  how, — for  war  brooks 
no  delay.  So  it  came  about,  that,  wellnigh  uncon- 
sciously, and  in  spite  of  himself,  the  warrior  grew  into  an 
organiser  and  reformer.  His  reforms  were  the  makeshift 
ammunition  with  which  he  loaded  his  cannon,  when  the 
contents  of  his  artillery  waggons  were  exhausted. 

I  shall  later  dwell  more  fully  on  this  point  of  view — an 
all-important  one  for  the  due  understanding  of  the  great 
Tsar's  work. 

I  possess  no  knowledge  of  the  art  of  war,  and  shall  not 
attempt  to  bring  ridicule  on  myself,  by  pretending  to  give  a 
complete  picture,  or  a  reasoned  criticism,  of  those  campaigns 
which,  between  1700  and  172 1,  robbed  Sweden  of  her  position 
in  Europe,  and  gave  Russia  hers.  And  the  intended  scope 
of  this  work  would  not,  indeed,  permit  it.  My  sole  endeavour 
will  be  to  point  out  the  historical  bearings  of  the  well-known 
events  which  mark  this  epoch,  and  so  to  cast  a  clearer  light 
on  the  object  of  this  special  study  of  mine — I  mean  the 
personal  features  of  the  great  man,  as  I  have  sketched  them 
in  the  preceding  pages,  and  those  of  his  reign,  which  I  shall 
now  proceed  to  consider. 

It  would  appear  that  it  was  not  till  Peter's  visit  to  Vienna, 
in  1698,  that  he  conceived  the  idea  of  attacking  Sweden. 
Up  till  that  time,  his  warlike  impulse  had  rather  been 
directed  southwards,  and  the  Turk  had  been  the  sole  object 
of  his  enmity.  But,  at  Vienna,  he  perceived  that  the  Emperor, 
whose  help  he  had  counted  on,  had  failed  him,  and  forthwith 
the  mobile  mind  of  the  young  Tsar  turned  to  the  right-about. 
A  war  he  must  have  of  some  kind,  it  little  mattered  where,  to 
give  work  to  his  young  army.  The  warlike  instincts  and  the 
greed  of  his  predecessors,  tempted  sometimes  b}-  the  Black 
Sea,  sometimes  by  the  Baltic,  and  the  border  provinces  of 


294  PETER  THE  GREAT 

I'oland,  had,  indec  1,  always  su'iiiifT  and  turned  back  and 
forward,  between  the  south  and  the  north.  These  alternate 
impulses,  natural  enough  in  a  nation  so  full  of  youth  and 
strength,  have,  since  those  days,  been  most  unnecessarily 
idealised,  erected  into  a  doctrine,  and  dignified  as  a  work  of 
unification.  It  must  be  acknowledged  that  every  nation  has, 
at  one  time  or  the  other,  thus  claimed  the  right  to  resume 
the  national  patrimony,  at  the  expense  of  neighbouring 
peoples,  and  Peter,  by  some  lucky  fate,  remained,  in  -this 
respect,  within  certain  bounds  of  justice,  of  logic,  and  of 
truth.  Absorbed  and  almost  exhausted,  as  he  soon  became, 
by  the  desperate  effort  demanded  by  his  war  in  the  North, 
he  forgot  or  imperilled  much  that  the  conquering  ambition 
of  his  predecessors  had  left  him  in  the  South  and  West. 
He  clung  to  the  territory  already  acquired  on  the  Polish 
side,  retired  from  the  Turkish  border,  and  claimed  what  he 
had  most  right,  relatively  speaking,  to  claim,  in  the  matter  of 
resumption,  on  his  north-western  frontier. 

On  that  frontier,  the  coast  country  between  the  mouth  of 
the  Narva,  or  Narova,  and  that  of  the  Siestra,  watered  by 
the  Voksa,  the  Neva,  the  Igora,  and  the  Louga,  was  really 
an  integral  part  of  the  original  Russian  patrimony.  It  was 
one  of  the  five  districts  {piatin)')  of  the  Novgorod  territory, 
and  was  still  full  of  towns,  bearing  Slavonic  names,  such  as 
Korela,  Ojcshek,  Ladoga,  Koporic,  I  amy,  and  Ivangrod. 
It  was  not  till  1616,  that  the  Tsar  Michael  Fcodorovitch, 
during  his  struggle  with  Gustavus  Adolphus,  finally  aban- 
doned the  sea  coast,  for  the  sake  of  keeping  his  hold  on 
Novgorod.  But  so  strong  was  the  hope  of  recovering  the 
lost  territory,  in  the  hearts  of  his  descendants,  that,  after 
the  failure  of  an  attempt  on  Livonia,  in  Alexis'  reign,  a 
Boyard  named  Ordin-Nashtchokin  set  to  work  to  build  a 
number  of  warships  at  Kokenhausen,  on  the  Dvina,  which 
vessels  were  intended  for  the  conquest  of  Riga.^  Peter  had 
an  impression,  confused  it  may  be,  but  yet  powerful,  of  these 
historic  traditions.  This  is  proved  by  the  direction  in  which 
he  caused  his  armies  to  march,  after  he  had  thrown  down  the 
gauntlet  to  Sweden.  He  strayed  off  the  path,  swaj'ed,  as  he 
often  was,  by  sudden  impulses,  but  he  always  came  back  to 
the  traditional  aim  of  his  forefathers, — access  to  the  sea,  a 
]ialtic  port,  '  a  window  open  upon  Europe^ 

^  Vicssit^lago,  Sttmmary  of  a  History  of  the  Russian  Fleet,  vol.  i.  p.  7, 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,  1700-1709  295 

His  interview  with  Augustus  ll.  at  Rawa  definitely  settled 
his  wavering  mind.  The  /yac^a  co-ivoita,  signed  by  the  King 
of  Poland  when  he  ascended  his  throne,  bound  him  to  claim 
the  territories  which  had  formerly  belonged  to  the  Republic, 
from  the  King  of  Sweden.  For  this  end  the  help  of  Denmark 
could  be  reckoned  on.  The  Treaty  of  Roeskilde  (1658), 
which  had  been  forced  on  Frederick  III.,  weighed  heavily  on 
his  successors,  and  the  eager  glances  fixed  by  the  neigh- 
bouring states  on  Holstein,  after  the  death  of  Christian 
Albert,  in  1694,  threatened  to  end  in  quarrel.  There  were 
fair  hopes,  too,  of  the  help  of  Brandenburg.  When  Sweden 
made  alliance  with  Louis  XIV.  and  Madame  de  Maintenon, 
that  country  abandoned  its  historic  position  in  Germany  to 
Prussia.  But  Sweden  still  kept  some  footing,  and  was  looked 
on  as  a  rival.  The  Elector  had  offered  his  services  at  the 
Konigsberg  meeting.  Further,  Augustus  had  a  personal 
charm  for  Peter,  sufficient,  in  itself,  to  prove  how  much 
simplicity,  inexperience,  and  boyish  thoughtlessness  still 
existed,  in  that  half  polished  mind.  The  Polish  sovereign, 
tall,  strong,  and  handsome,  an  adept  in  all  ph)'sical  exercises, 
a  great  hunter,  a  hard  drinker,  and  an  indefatigable  admirer 
of  the  fair  sex,  in  whose  person  debauch  of  every  kind  took 
royal  proportions,  delighted  the  Tsar,  and  somewhat  over- 
awed him.  He  was  more  than  inclined  to  think  him  a 
genius,  and  was  quite  ready  to  bind  up  his  fortunes  with 
his  friend's.  At  the  end  of  four  days  of  uninterrupted 
feasting,  they  had  agreed  on  the  division  of  the  spoils  of 
Sweden,  and  had  made  a  preliminary  exchange  of  arms  and 
clothing.  The  Tsar  appeared  at  Moscow,  a  few  weeks  later, 
wearing  the  King  of  Poland's  waistcoat,  and  belted  with  his 
sword.^  Yet,  so  far,  there  was  no  actual  plan,  either  of 
alliance  or  of  campaign.  The  two  friends  and  future  allies 
had,  each  of  them,  too  much  to  do  at  home  to  be  able  to  seek 
adventures  abroad.  Augustus  had  more  than  enough  trouble 
with  his  ungovernable  Poles,  and  had  not  yet  settled  his 
account  with  the  partisans  of  the  Prince  de  Conti.  There 
was  headsman's  work  for  Peter  to  do.  The  Strcltsy  had 
chosen  that  moment  to  break  into  open  revolt. 

Neither  monarch  was  to  give  the  final  summons  to  arms. 
Neither  was  to  have  the  merit  of  giving  shape  to  the 
triple  or  quadru[)le  coalition,  which,  for  the  ne.xt  two  }-cars, 

^  Oiislrialof,  vol.  iii.  p.  622. 
20 


296  PETER  THE  GREAT 

was  to  rise  up  tlircatenini^ly  before  the  drawn  sword  of 
Charles  XII.  1  liis  was  to  be  the  work  of  a  Swede,  or  at  all 
events  of  a  Swedish  subject.  The  Rawa  interview  took  place 
in  AuL,nist  1698,  and,  in  October,  John  Reinhold  Patkul 
appeared  upon  the  scene.  This  Livonian  ij^entlcman,  who 
came  into  the  world,  in  1660,  in  a  |)rison  cell  (his  father,  in 
consequence  of  the  cession  of  Wolniar  to  the  Poles,  had  been 
arrested,  and,  with  his  mother,  imprisoned  at  Stockholm,  on 
a  charc^c  of  high  treason),  would  seem  to  have  been  marked 
from  birth  for  some  tragic  destiny.  Bold  and  ambitious, 
passionate  and  eager,  he  had  all  the  qualities  of  a  tragedy 
hero.  A  rivalry  in  some  love  affair  early  set  him  at  variance 
with  the  Swedish  Governor  of  his  province,  Hclmersen. 
Soon  afterwards,  goaded  partly,  no  doubt,  by  personal 
spite,  he  became  the  champion  of  the  Livonian  aristocracy 
against  Charles  XI.  He  was  a  man  who  could  dress  his 
passions  up,  and  then  deceive  himself  as  to  the  reality  of 
the  disguise.  He  was  prosecuted,  condemned  to  death  by 
default,  in  1696,  and  took  refuge  at  Prangins,  in  Switzer- 
land, whence  F"leming,  Augustus'  favourite  minister,  attracted 
him  to  Warsaw.  There  he  arrived,  with  his  coalition  plan 
ready  drawn  up  ;  he  proposed  that  Brandenburg,  Denmark, 
Russia,  and  Poland  should  ally  themselves  against  Sweden, 
and  that  the  price  of  Poland's  adhesion  should  be  the 
Province  of  Livonia.  Russia  was  to  be  rewarded  with  the 
possession  of  other  provinces  on  the  coast,  and  the  Livonian 
had  taken  good  care  minutely  to  circumscribe  the  allotted 
territory.  Then,  and  always,  he  mistrusted  Muscovy,  and 
advised  that  her  'hands  should  be  firmly  tied,  lest  she  should 
devour  the  morsel  we  have  cooked.'  ^ 

Augustus  was  easih'  enticed.  Frederick  IV.  of  Denmark, 
whose  eyes  were  fi.xed  on  Holstein,  only  needed  a  little 
encouragement.  The  Primate  of  Poland,  Radziejowski,  was 
bought  over  with  the  sum  of  i(X),ooo  ducats ;  and  matters 
soon  began  to  move.  A  secret  article  of  the  Treaty,  signed 
by  Patkul,  in  the  name  of  the  nobles  of  his  country,  guaran- 
teed the  possession  of  Livonia  to  ^Augustus  and  his  heirs,  even 
in  the  case  of  their  losing  the  Polish  throne.  This  article 
was  not  communicated  to  Radziejowski.-  The  Saxon  General, 
Karlowicz,  was  sent  to  Moscow,  to  arrange  matters  definitely 

^  Patkuh  Berichte  (Berlin,  1802);  Bernoulli,  Memoranda  dated  Jan.    i  and 
Ap.  7,  1699.  -  iSzujski,  History  of  Poland,  vol,  iv.  p.  169. 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,  1700  1709  297 

with  the  Tsar,  and  Patkul  accompanied  him,  under  a  feigned 
name.  At  Moscow  they  fell  in  with  the  Ambassadors  of  the 
new  King  of  Sweden,  Charles  XII.,  who  had  come  to  obtain 
confirmation  of  the  Peace  of  Kardis  (1660).  They  had  been 
well  received  by  Peter,  who,  however,  dropped  some  com- 
plaints, now  officially  formulated  for  the  first  time,  as  to  the 
ill-treatment  of  his  Ambassadors  during  their  temporary 
stay  at  Riga.  Clearly  he  was  even  then  seeking  a  pretext 
for  a  rupture,  and  was  only  waiting  to  secure  himself  on  the 
Turkish  side,  before  throwing  off  the  mask.  The  Treaty  of 
Karlovitz,  which,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  French  P^nvoy, 
Chateauneuf,  had  been  signed  on  the  26th  of  January  1699, 
and  which  had  reconciled  the  Porte  with  the  Empire  and 
with  Poland,  had  gained  nothing  for  Russia,  beyond  a  two 
years'  amnesty.  The  Tsar  had  sent  Oukraintsof  as  his 
plenipotentiary  to  Constantinople,  to  endeavour  to  convert 
this  amnesty  into  a  definite  peace.  On  the  nth  November 
1699,  Peter,  confident  of  the  success  of  this  negotiation,  called 
the  Polish  and  Danish  Ministers  to  his  little  country  house 
at  Preobrajenskoie,  and  there  signed,  with  them,  a  secret 
treaty  of  alliance,  offensive  and  defensive.  In  this  Treaty, 
Augustus  only  figured  as  the  P^lector  of  Saxony.  But  the 
Tsar  continued  to  fondle  the  Swedes,  for  Oukraintsof  worked 
but  slowly.  In  the  beginning  of  i/OO,  Augustus  and  Freder- 
ick, faithful  to  their  engagement,  went  to  war  ;  but  Peter, 
bound  though  he  was  to  follow  their  example,  neither  moved 
nor  stirred.  Frederick  was  beaten,  his  very  Capital  was 
threatened.  So  much  the  worse  for  him  !  Augustus  seized 
on  Dunamlinde,  but  utterly  failed  before  Riga.  All  the 
better  for  the  Russians  ;  Riga  was  left  for  them  !  Another 
Saxon  General,  Langen,  came  hurrying  to  Moscow.  The 
Tsar  listened  coolly  to  his  reproaches,  and  replied  that  he 
would  act  as  soon  as  the  news  from  Constantinople  permitted 
it.  The  negotiations  were  proceeding  satisfactorily,  and  he 
hoped  shortly  to  fulfil  his  promise,  and  to  attack  the  Swedes 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Pskof.  This  was  a  point  on  which 
Patkul  had  laid  great  stress,  and  Peter  had  studiously  avoided 
contradicting  him.  It  was  quite  understood  between  them 
that  the  Tsar  was  not  to  lay  a  finger  on  Livonia.^     At  last, 

^  Oustrialof,  vol.  iii.  pp.  375-377.  Van  der  Ilulst,  Dutch  Resident  at  Moscow, 
to  the  Registrar  of  the  States-General,  3rd  Aug.,  8th  Sept.,  1700  (Archives 
at  the  Hague). 


298  PETER  THE  GREAT 

oil  the  8th  of  Aui^aist  1700,  OukraTiitsof's  courier  arrived  with 
the  loni:^ccl-for  despatch.  Peace  with  Turkey  was  siL,Mied  at 
last,  and  that  very  day  the  Russian  troops  received  their 
marchini;  orders.  But  they  were  not  sent  towards  I'skof. 
They  marched  on  Narva,  in  the  very  heart  of  the  Livonian 
country. 

Peter's  war  manifesto  dwells,  with  superb  impudence,  on  the 
grievances  with  which  his  visit  to  Ki^^a  had  armed  him. 
Three  weeks  later,  Matvicief,  his  Envoy  in  Holland,  who  had 
not  yet  had  time  to  receive  the  necessary  warnin<^,  was  still 
assuring  the  States  General  that  the  Tsar  had  no  idea  of 
taking  armed  vengeance  for  the  humiliations  imposed  on  his 
Ambassadors}  It  would  now  appear  that  it  was  the  Tsar 
himself,  in  spite  of  his  incognito,  who  had  been  insulted,  and 
that  the  Sovereign  was  going  to  war  to  avenge  the  ill-treat- 
ment of  Peter  Mihailof ! 

The  army  destined  to  lay  siege  to  Narva  consisted  of 
three  divisions  of  novel  formation,  under  the  orders  of  three 
Generals,  Golovin,  Weyde,  and  Repnin,  with  10,500  Cos- 
sacks, and  some  irregular  troops, — 63,520  men  in  all.  Rep- 
nin's  division,  numbering  10,834  men,  and  the  Little  Russian 
Cossacks,  stopped  on  the  wa}-,  so  that  the  actual  force  at 
disposal  was  reduced  to  about  40,000  men.^  But  Charles  XII. 
could  not  bring  more  than  5300  infantry,  and  3130  cavalry, 
to  the  relief  of  the  town.  And,  being  obliged,  when  he  neared 
Wesemburg,  to  which  point  Shcrem^tief's  cavalry  had  already 
advanced,  to  throw  himself  in  flying  column  across  a  country 
which  was  already  completely  devastated,  and,  consequently, 
to'  carry  all  his  supplies  with  him,  his  troops  arrived  in 
presence  of  an  enemy  five  times  as  numerous  as  themselves, 
worn  out,  and  completely  exhausted,  by  a  succession  of 
forced  marches.^ 

Peter  never  dreamt  that  he  would  find  the  King  of  Sweden 
in  Livonia.  He  believed  his  hands  were  more  than  full 
enough,  elsewhere,  with  the  King  of  Denmark  ;  he  was  quite 
unaware  that  the  Peace  of  Travendal,  which  had  been  signed 
on  the  very  day  of  the  departure  of  the  Russian  troops,  had 
been  already  forced  upon  his  ally.  He  started  off  gaily  at  the 
head  of  his  Bombardier  Company,  full  of  expectation  of  an 

^  Memoranda,  Sept.  2,  1700  (Dutch  Arcliiv <.'.■). 

2  Oustrialof,  vol.  iv,  p.  9. 

•  Hansen,  Geschichte  dcr  Stadt  Nanva  (Dorpat,  185S),  p.  144. 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,   1700- 1709  299 

easy  victory.  When  he  arrived  before  the  town  on  the  23rd 
of  September,  he  was  astounded  to  find  any  preparations  for 
serious  defence.  A  regular  siege  had  to  be  undertaken,  and 
when,  after  a  month  of  preparations,  the  Russian  batteries  at 
last  opened  fire,  they  made  no  impression  whatever.  The 
artillery  was  bad,  and  yet  more  badly  served.  A  second 
month  passed,  during  which  Peter  waited  and  hoped  for  some 
piece  of  luck,  either  for  an  offer  to  recapitulate,  or  for  the 
arrival  of  Repnin's  force.  What  did  happen  was,  that  on 
the  night  of  the  17th  of  November,  news  came  that  within 
twent}^-four  hours  the  King  of  Sweden  would  be  at  Narva. 

That  very  night,  Peter  fled  from  his  camp,  leaving  the 
command  to  the  Prince  de  Croy. 

None  of  the  arguments  brought  forward  by  the  Sovereign 
and  his  apologists,  in  justification  of  this  step,  appear  to  me  to 
hold  water.  The  necessity  pleaded  for  an  interview  with  the 
Duke  of  Poland, — the  Tsar's  desire  to  hasten  on  Repnin's 
march, — are  mere  pitiful  excuses.  Langen  and  Hallart,  the 
Generals  sent  by  Augustus  to  observe  the  military  operations 
in  Livonia,  gravely  reported  that  the  Tsar  had  been  obliged 
to  go  to  Moscow  to  receive  a  Turkish  Envoy, — who  was  not 
expected  for  four  months  !  The  Emperor's  Envoy,  Pleyer, 
is  nearer  the  mark,  when  he  says  the  Sovereign  obev-ed  the 
entreaties  of  his  advisers,  who  considered  the  danger  too 
great  for  him  to  be  permitted  to  remain.^  And  Hallart  him- 
self, speaking  of  these  same  counsellors,  whether  ministers  or 
generals,  does  not  hesitate  to  declare,  in  his  rough,  soldierly 
Language,  that  'they  have  about  as  much  courage  as  a  frog 
has  hair  on  his  belly.' ^  The  Russian  army,  disconcerted  by 
the  unexpected  resistance  of  the  Swedes,  ill-prepared  for 
resistance,  ill-commanded,  ill-lodged,  and  ill-fed,  was  already 
demoralised  to  the  last  extent.  The  arrival  of  Charles  caused 
a  panic,  and  from  that  panic,  Peter,  the  most  impressionable 
of  men,  was  the  first  to  suffer.  The  orders  he  left  with  the 
JVince  de  Croy  give  all-sufficient  proof  of  the  disordered 
condition  of  his  mind.  They  enjoined  him,  in  the  first  place, 
to  await  the  arrival  of  the  artiller}-  ammunition,  lacking  at 
the  moment,  before  he  attempted  to  assault  the  town  ;  and, 
///  tJie  second,  to  endeavour  to  seize  the  place  before  the  arrival 
of  the  King  of  Sweden,  of  the  imminence  of  which  he  must 

'  Ouslrialof,  vol.  iv.  p.  34. 

*  HLrniian,  Geschichlc  Rmslands,  vol.  iv.  p.  116, 


300  PETER  THE  GREAT 

hav^e  been  well  aware,  since  that  it  was  w hich  drove  him  into 
flight !  1 

Prince  Charles  I-lugene  de  Croy  was  far  from  hcinL,^  a  poor 
commander.  He  had  served  fifteen  j-ears  in  the  l^m|)i-ror"s 
armies,  had  won  the  grade  of  Lieutenant  Field- Marsh. il 
under  Charles  of  Lorraine;  had  taken  part,  in  1683,  in  the 
relief  of  Vienna  under  Sobieski,  and  thus  lacked  neither 
experience  nor  authority.  But  he  had  only  just  reached 
the  Russian  camp  with  a  message  from  the  King  of  Poland, 
he  knew  nothing  of  the  army  which  was  put  into  his  hands, 
he  had  no  acquaintance  with  its  leaders,  and  could  not  even 
s[3cak  their  language.  The  one  fault  that  can  be  laid  to  his 
charge,  is  that  he  ever  accepted  the  command,  and  that  fault 
was  expiated  by  his  death  at  Revel  two  years  later,  a 
pri-soner,  and  stripped  of  everything  he  posses.sed. 

The  startling  rapidity  with  which  Charles  had  rid  himself 
of  the  weakest  of  his  three  adversaries,  under  the  very  walls 
of  Copenhagen,  would  have  been  less  astonishing  to  Peter 
if  the  young  sovereign  had  better  realised  the  conditions 
under  which  he  and  his  allies  had  begun  a  struggle  in  which, 
at  first  sight,  their  superiority  appeared  so  disproportionate. 
King  Frederick  had  reckoned  without  the  Powers  which 
had  guaranteed  the  recent  Treaty  of  Altona,  by  which  the 
safety  of  Holstcin  was  ensured, — without  the  Hanoverian 
troops,  and  those  of  Liineburg,  which  at  once  brought  suc- 
cour to  Toeningen, — without  the  Anglo-Dutch  fleet,  which 
forced  his  to  seek  shelter  under  the  walls  of  Copenhagen, 
and  thus  permitted  the  King  of  Sweden  to  cross  the  Sound 
unmolested,  and  land  quietly  in  Zealand  ;  and  finally,  he 
reckoned,  and  for  this  he  may  well  be  excused,  without  that 
w'hich  was  soon  to  fill  all  Europe  with  terror  and  amazement, 
— the  lucky  star,  and  the  military  genius,  of  Charles  XII. 

This  monarch, — born  in  1682,  ten  }-ears  after  Peter,  who 
had  slain  bears  when  he  was  sixteen,  and,  at  eighteen, 
was  a  finished  soldier,  greedy  for  glory,  and  battle,  and 
blood, — was  the  last  representative  of  that  race  of  men,  who, 
between  the  si.xteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  held  all 
Central  Europe  in  their  iron  grip ; — fierce  warriors,  who 
steeped  Germany  and  Italy  in  fire  and  blood,  fought  their 
way  from  town  to  town,  and  hamlet  to  hamlet,  giving  no 
truce,  and  showing  no  mercy,  who  lived  for  war,  and  by  war, 

'   Oustrialuf,  vol.  iv.  p.  35. 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,   1700-1709  301 

grew  old,  and  died  in  harness,  in  a  very  atmosphere  of  carnage, 
with  bodies  riddled  with  wounds,  with  hands  stained  with 
abominable  crimes,  but  with  spirits  calm  and  unflinching  to 
the  last.  Standing  on  the  threshold  of  the  new  period,  he 
was  the  superb  and  colossal  incarnation  of  that  former  one, 
which,  happily  for  mankind,  was  to  disappear  in  his  person. 
Count  Guiscard,  who,  as  envoy  from  the  King  of  France, 
accompanied  him  on  his  first  campaign,  describes  him  thus  : 
■ — '  The  King  of  Sweden  is  of  tall  stature, — taller  than 
myself  by  almost  a  head  ;  he  is  very  handsome,  he  has  fine 
eyes  and  a  good  complexion,  his  face  is  long,  his  speech  a 
little  thick.  He  wears  a  small  wig  tied  behind  in  a  bag, 
a  plain  stock,  without  cravat,  a  very  tight  jerkin  of  plain 
cloth,  with  sleeves  as  narrow  as  our  waistcoat  sleeves,  a 
narrow  belt  above  this  jerkin,  with  a  sword  of  extraordinary 
length  and  thickness,  and  almost  perfectly  flat-soled  shoes 
— a  very  strange  style  of  dress  for  a  prince  of  his  age.'  '• 
This  description  is  too  hasty,  and  only  skin-deep.  That 
of  the  English  Envoy,  Stepney,  written  some  years  later,  is 
more  expressive  : — '  He  is  a  tall  and  well-built  monarch,  but 
somewhat  slovenly.  His  manners  are  the  roughest  imagin- 
able, in  so  young  a  man.  In  order  that  the  exterior  of  his 
quarters  may  not  belie  their  interior,  he  has  chosen  the 
clirtiest  place,  and  one  of  the  gloomiest  houses,  in  all  Saxony. 
The  cleanest  and  neatest  part  of  it  is  the  courtyard  in  front 
of  the  house,  where  every  one  must  get  off  his  horse,  and 
immediately  sink  up  to  his  knees  in  mud.  In  this  court  are 
all  his  own  horses,  merely  fastened  with  halters,  with  sacks 
over  them  instead  of  horse-cloths,  and  without  either  racks 
or  mangers.  They  have  staring  coats,  round  bellies,  heavy 
hind  quarters,  and  badly  kept  tails,  with  the  hair  all  of  differ- 
ent lengths.  The  groom  who  takes  care  of  them  is  no  better 
dressed  nor  fed  than  his  horses  ;  one  of  these  is  always  kept 
ready  saddled  for  the  monarch,  who  will  constantly  jump 
on  its  back,  and  rush  off  at  full  gallop  before  any  one  can 
follow  hiin.  He  will  sometimes  ride  ten  or  twelve  German 
miles,  which  equal  forty-eight  or  fifty  English,  in  a  day, 
and  this  even  in  the  winter,  when  he  comes  in  as  muddy  as 
any  postillion.  He  wears  a  blue  coat  with  \'ellow  copper 
buttons,  the  corners  of  his  jerkin  are  turned  back  in  front  and 
behind  to  show  his  waistcoat  and  his  leather  breeches,  which 

*  Despatch,  Aug.  19,  1699  (French  Forcii^n  Office,  SwLcien). 


302  PETER  THE  GREAT 

arc  frequently  very  greasy.  His  cravat  is  made  of  a  piece  of 
black  crape,  but  the  collar  of  his  overcoat  buttons  up  so 
hij^h  that  no  one  can  see  whether  he  wears  a  cravat  or  not. 
His  shirt  aiul  wristbands  are  generally  very  dirty,  and  he 
never  wears  cuffs  or  gloves,  exccj)t  on  horseback.  His  hands 
are  the  same  colour  as  his  wristbands,  so  that  yc)U  can  hardly 
tell  one  from  the  other.  His  hair  is  light  brown,  very  short 
and  greasy,  and  he  never  combs  it,  except  with  his  fingers. 
He  sits  down,  without  the  smallest  ceremony,  on  any  chair 
he  finds  in  the  dining-room  ...  he  eats  very  quickly,  never 
spends  more  than  a  cjuarter  of  an  hour  at  tabic,  and  never 
says  one  word  during  the  meal  .  .  he  never  drinks  anything 
but  small  beer  ...  he  has  no  sheets  nor  canopy  to  his  bed,  the 
mattress  beneath  him  serves  also  to  cover  him,  he  rolls  it 
round  him  .  .  .  beside  his  bed,  there  is  a  very  handsome  gilded 
Bible,  the  only  thing  about  him  that  is  the  least  showy.'  ^ 

This  time,  the  figure  stands  out  clearly  enough.  Stern, 
fierce,  and  wild. 

The  landing  in  Zealand  was  a  piece  of  boyish  temerity. 
Guiscard,  imprudent  as  he  thought  it,  did  not  dissuade 
the  monarch,  and  even  threw  himself  into  the  water  with 
him,  so  as  to  reach  the  shore  more  quickly.  'Your  Majesty 
would  not  have  me  leave  your  Court  on  this,  its  greatest 
day  ! ' 

The  descent  on  Livonia,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  bad 
weather  had  prevented  the  landing  of  some  of  the  Swedish 
regiments,  was  held  by  the  French  Diplomat,  intrepid  though 
he  was,  as  an  act  of  madness.  '  There  is  great  reason 
to  fear  the  King  will  not  survive  it,'  he  wrote.-  In  order 
to  reach  Narva  with  his  8000  men,  Charles,  after  having 
crossed  a  tract  of  desert  country,  was  obliged,  at  a  place 
called  PyhaToggi,  to  cross  a  narrow  valley,  divided  by  a 
stream,  which,  if  it  had  been  fortified,  must  have  stopped 
him  short.  The  idea  occurred  to  Gordon,  but  I'eter  would 
not  listen  to  him,  and  it  was  not  till  the  very  last  moment 
that  he  sent  Shcrcmctief,  who  found  the  Swedes  just  de- 
bouching into  the  vallc\-,  received  several  volleys  of  grape 
shr»t,  and  retired  in  disorder.  1  he  mad  venture  had  suc- 
ceeded. But  Charles's  further  advance  involved  the  playing 
of  a  risky  game.     His  men  were  worn  out,  his  horses  had 

*   L;inil)crly's  Af. woirs  {The  Il.iyiic,  1724),  vol.  iv.  ji.  4;S. 
-  Nov.  2,  1700,  from  JvL'Vcl  (French  l-'oiciyii  <  XIrc,  .Swtdcii). 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,  1700- 1709  303 

not  been  fed  for  two  whole  days.^  Still  he  went  on  ;  he 
reached  Narva,  formed  his  Swedes  into  several  attackinp^ 
columns,  led  one  himself,  and,  favoured  by  a  sudden 
hurricane,  which  drove  showers  of  blinding  snow  into  his 
adversaries'  faces,  threw  himself  into  their  camp,  and  mas- 
tered the  place  in  half  an  hour.  The  only  resistance  he 
met  was  offered  by  the  two  regiments  of  the  Guard.  All  the 
rest  fled  or  surrendered.  A  few  Russians  were  drowned  in 
the  Narva.  'If  the  river  had  been  frozen,'  said  Charles  dis- 
contentedly, '  I  do  not  know  that  we  should  have  contrived 
to  kill  a  single  man.' 

It  was  a  total  breakdown  ;  the  army  had  disappeared,  and 
the  artillery.  The  very  sovereign  was  gone,  and  with  him, 
the  country's  honour.  That  had  sunk  out  of  sight  amidst 
the  scornful  laughter  with  which  Europe  hailed  this  un- 
dignified defeat.  "^  The  Tsar  was  in  full  flight.  All  Peter's 
plans  of  conquest,  his  dreams  of  l-luropean  expansion,  and 
of  navigating  the  Northern  Seas,  his  hopes  of  glory,  his 
faith  in  his  civilising  mission,  had  utterly  faded.  And  he 
himself  had  collapsed  upon  their  heaped-up  ruins.  Onward 
he  fled,  feeling  the  Swedish  soldiers  on  his  heels.  He  wept, 
he  sued  for  peace,  vowing  he  would  treat  at  once  and  sub- 
mit to  any  sacrifice,  he  sent  imploring  appeals  to  the 
States-General  of  Holland,  to  England  and  to  the  Emperor, 
praying  for  mediation.^ 

But  swiftly  he  recovered  possession  of  his  faculties. 
Then,  raising  his  head, — through  the  golden  haze  with 
which  his  insufficient  education,  the  infatuation  inherent  to 
his  semi-oriental  origin,  and  his  inexperience,  had  filled  his 
eyes,  through  the  rent  of  that  mighty  catastrophe  and  that 
cruel  lesson, — he  saw  and  touched  the  truth  at  last!  He 
realised  what  he  must  set  himself  to  do,  if  he  was  to  become 
that  which  he  fain  would  be.  There  must  be  no  more  play- 
ing at  soldiers  and  sailors, — no  more  of  that  farce  of  power 
and  glory,  in  which,  till  now,  he  had  been  the  chief  actor, — no 
more  aimless  adventure,  undertaken  in  utter  scorn  of  time 
and  place.  He  must  toil,  now,  in  downright  earnest, — he 
must  go  forward,  step  by  step, — measure  each  day's  effort, 
calculate   each   morrow's   task,  let    each   fruit   ripen    ere   he 

*  S.irauw,   Die   Feldziige    Karh    XII.   (Leipzig,    iSSi),   p.    551  ;    Ou>tiialof, 
vol.  iv.  p.  iSi. 

*  Ouslrialof,  vol.  iv.  p.  77 


304  PETER  THE  (iREAT 

essayed  to  pluck  it,  learn  patience,  and  dofjged  perseverance. 
He  did  it  all.  lie  found  means  within  him,  and  about  him, 
to  carry  out  iiis  task.  The  strong,  long-enduring,  long- 
sufifcring  race  of  which  he  came,  endowed  him  with  the 
necessary  qualities,  and  gave  him  its  own  inexhaustible  and 
never-changing  devotion,  and  .self-sacrifice. 

Ten  armies  may  be  destroyed,  he  will  bring  up  ten  others 
to  replace  them,  no  matter  what  the  price,  llis  people  will 
follow  him,  and  die  beside  him,  to  the  last  man,  to  the  last 
morsel  of  bread  snatched  from  its  starving  jaws.  A  month 
hence,  the  fugitive  from  Narva  will  belong  to  a  vanished, 
forgotten,  almost  improbable  past, — the  future  victor  of 
Poltava  \vill  have  taken  his  place. 


II 

Of  the  Russian  army,  as  it  had  originally  taken  the  field, 
about  three  and  twenty  thousand  men  remained, — a  certain 
number  of  troops,— the  cavalry  under  Shcrcmetiefs  com- 
mand, and  Repnin's  division.  The  Tsar  ordered  fresh 
levies.  He  melted  the  church  bells  into  cannon.'  In  vain 
the  clergy  raised  the  cry  of  sacrilege  ;  he  never  faltered  for  a 
moment.  He  went  hither  and  thither,  giving  orders,  and 
active  help, — rating  some,  encouraging  others,  inspiring  every 
one  with  some  of  his  own  energy,— that  energy  which  his 
misfortunes  had  spurred  and  strengthened.  Yet,  Byzantine 
as  he  was  by  nature,  he  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to 
endeavour  to  mislead  public  opinion.  Matvieief  was  given 
orders  to  draw  up  his  own  special  description  of  the  Battle 
of  Xarva  and  its  con.sequenccs,  for  the  benefit  of  the  readers 
of  the  Gazette  de  Hollandc,  and  of  the  Memoranda  which 
he  himself  addres.sed  to  the  States  General.  The  Swedes, 
according  to  this  account,  had  been  surrounded  by  a  superior 
force,  within  the  Russian  camp,  and  had  there  been  forced 
to  capitulate ;  after  which  event,  certain  Ru.ssian  officers, 
who  had  desired  to  pay  their  respects  to  the  King  of  Sweden, 
had  been  treacherously  .seized,  by  his  orders.-  Europe  only 
laughed,  but  in  later  years  this  pretended  capitulation,  and 
the  supposed  Swedish  violation  of  it,  was  to  .serve  Peter  as  a 
pretext  for  violating  others,  to  which  he  himself  had  willingly 

»  Solovief,  vol.  xiv.  p.  327.  ^  Laml.erty,  vol.  i.  p.  263. 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,  1700-1709  305 

consented.^  At  Vienna,  too,  Count  Kaunitz  listened  with  a 
smile,  while  Prince  Galitzin  explained  that  the  Tsar 
'  needed  no  victories  to  prove  his  military  glory.'  Yet,  when 
the  Vice-Chancellor  inquired  what  conditions  the  Tsar 
hoped  to  obtain  from  his  victorious  adversary,  the  Russian 
Diplomat  calmly  claimed  the  greater  part  of  Livonia,  with 
Narva,  Ivangrod,  Kolyvan,  Koporie,  and  Derpt,- — and  future 
events  were  to  prove  that  he  had  not  asked  too  much. 

Before  long,  this  boldness  began  to  reap  its  own  reward. 
To  begin  with,  Charles  XII.  made  no  immediate  attempt  to 
pursue  his  advantage  on  Russian  soil ;  Peter  had  the  joy  of 
seeing  him  plunge  into  the  depths  of  the  Polish  plains.  The 
King  of  Sweden's  decision,  which,  we  are  told,  did  not  tally 
with  his  Generals'  opinion,  has  been  severely  criticised. 
Guiscard  thought  it  perfectly  justifiable,  so  long  as  the  king 
had  not  rid  himself  of  Augustus,  by  means  of  the  peace 
which  this  prince  appeared  more  than  willing  to  negotiate, 
through  the  mediation  of  Guiscard  himself.  But  Charles 
turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  French  Diplomat's  prayers  and 
remonstrances.  He  feared,  declares  Guiscard,  '  he  might  run 
short  of  enemies,'^  and  as  he  could  not  advance  on  Russia, 
and  leave  the  Saxons  and  Poles  in  his  rear,  he  desired, — and 
here  doubtless  he  was  right, — first  of  all  to  ensure  his  line  of 
communication,  and  of  possible  retreat.  Thus,  by  his  own 
deed,  he  strengthened  and  cemented  an  alliance  which  had 
already  been  shaken  by  common  defeat.  Augustus,  repulsed 
by  the  Swedish  king,  threw  himself  into  Peter's  arms,  and  in 
February  1701,  the  common  destinies  of  the  Tsar  and  the 
King  of  Poland  were  once  more  bound  together.  A  fresh 
treaty  was  signed  at  the  Castle  of  Birze,  close  to  Diinaburg. 

The  Castle,  now  a  mere  ruin,  then  the  property  of  the 
young  wife  of  the  Count  Palatine  of  Neuburg,  a  Princess 
Radziwill,  was  a  very  magnificent  residence.  The  allies'  first 
care  was  to  renew  the  delights  of  their  meeting  at  Rawa. 
Peter,  though  beaten  in  the  forenoon  as  an  artillery  marks- 
man (see  page  81,  ante),  took  his  revenge  at  the  even- 
ing bancjuet.  Augustus  drank  so  much  wine  that  it  was 
impossible,  next  morning,  to  rouse  him  and  get  him  on 
his  feet,  in  time  for  Mass.     Peter  attended  it  alone,  listened 

*  Lamberty,  vol.  vi.  p.  288. 

'  Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  p.  84. 

'  Despatch  dated  June  i,  1701  (Fiench  Foreign  Office,  S\^eden). 


3o6  PETER  THE  GREAT 

devoutly  to  the  service  ('which  was  Cathohc,  of  course,  beint^ 
in  Poland),  and  manifested  his  usual  curiositj'  concernin^Lj 
liturgical  details.  Then,  Aui;ustus  having  slept  himself 
sober,  the  orgy  began  again,  and  lasted  three  whole  days. 
Yet,  even  while  carrying  on  the  competition  of  skill  and 
strength  inaugurated  by  their  target  practice,  the  sovereigns 
contrived  to  give  a  thought  to  politics.  Augustus,  ob- 
serving the  silver  plate  in  front  of  him  was  not  a  clean 
one,  rolled  it  in  his  fingers  like  a  piece  of  paper,  and 
threw  it  behind  him.  Peter  forthwith  followed  suit,  and 
the  whole  service  of  plate  might  have  been  treated  in  like 
manner.  But  the  Tsar  was  the  first  to  hold  his  hand,  with 
the  remark,  that  the  king  of  Sweden's  sword  must  be  treated 
after  the  same  fashion.^  On  the  fourth  day,  at  last,  he  con- 
ferred with  the  Polish  Vice- Chancellor  Szczuka  on  the 
subject  of  the  co-operation  of  the  Republic  in  the  forth- 
coming campaign.  The  conditions  were  not  satisfactorily 
settled,  and  the  Republic  took  no  final  share  in  this  arrange- 
ment, but  the  personal  concord  of  the  two  monarchs  was 
settled  on  the  28th  of  February. 

The  year  1701  was  a  hard  one  for  Peter.  The  junction 
between  the  army,  which  he  had  contrived,  after  some  fashion, 
to  put  on  a  war  footing,  and  the  Saxon  troops  of  Augustus, 
only  resulted  in  the  complete  defeat  of  the  allied  forces  under 
the  walls  of  Riga,  on  the  3rd  of  July.  In  the  month  of  June, 
the  Moscow  Kreml  caught  fire ;  the  State  offices  {Prikaz) 
with  their  archives,  the  provision  stores,  and  palaces,  were  all 
devoured  by  the  flames.  The  bells  fell  from  the  tower  of  Ivan 
the  Great,  and  the  heaviest,  which  weighed  over  a  hundred 
tons,  was  broken  in  the  fall.-  But,  in  midwinter,  Shcrcmetief 
contrived  to  surprise  Schlippenbach  with  a  superior  force, 
and  defeated  him  at  Erestfer  (29th  December).  Peter's 
delight,  and  his  \\'ild  manifestations  of  triumph,  may  easily 
be  imagined,  lie  did  not  content  h.imself  with  exhibiting 
the  few  Swedish  prisoners  who  had  fallen  into  his  hands  at 
Mo.scow,  in  a  sort  of  imitation  Roman  triumph  ;  his  practical 
mind  incited  him  to  make  use  of  them  in  another  way,  and 
Cornelius  Von  Bruyn,  who  had  lived  long  enough  in  the 
country  to  be  thoroughly  acquainted  with  its  cu.stoms,  calmly 
reports  that  the  price  of  war  captives,  which  had  originally 

'   NarlnPs  Recollectiotn,  p.  26. 
^  Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  j),  99. 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,  1700- 1709  307 

been  three  or  four  florins  a  head,  rose  as  hij^h  as  twenty  and 
thirty  florins.  Even  foreigners  now  ventured  to  purcliase 
them,  and  entered  into  competition  in  the  open  market.^ 

On  the  1 8th  of  July,  1702,  Sheremetief  won  a  fresh 
victory  over  Schlippenbach, — 30,000  Russians  defeated  8000 
Swedes.  According  to  Peter's  official  account  of  the  battle, 
5000  of  his  enemies  were  left  dead  on  the  field,  while 
Sheremetief  only  lost  400  men.^  This  report  made  Europe 
smile,  but  the  Livonians  found  it  no  laughing  matter. 
Volmar  and  Marienburg  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  victor, 
who  ravaged  the  country  in  the  most  frightful  fashion.  The 
Russians  had  not,  as  yet,  learnt  any  other  form  of  warfare, 
and,  as  we  may  suppose,  the  idea  that  he  might  ever  possess 
these  territories  had  not  yet  occurred  to  Peter,  His  mind, 
indeed,  was  absorbed  elsewhere.  His  old  fancies  and  whims 
were  strong  upon  him,  and  he  left  Apraxin  to  rage  on  the 
banks  of  the  Neva,  in  Ingria,  on  the  very  spot  where  his 
future  capital  was  to  stand,  while  he  himself  gave  all  his 
time  and  strength  to  the  building  of  a  few  wretched  ships  at 
Archangel.  It  was  not  till  September,  when  the  ice  had 
driven  him  out  of  the  northern  port,  that  he  returned  to  the 
west  and  took  up  his  former  course.  He  reached  the  Lake  of 
Ladoga,  sent  for  Sheremetief,  and  the  end  he  was  to  pursue 
for  many  a  long  year  seems  at  last  to  have  taken  firm  root 
in  his  hitherto  unstable  mind.  He  laid  siege  to  Noteburg, 
where  he  found  a  garrison  of  only  450  men,  and  on  the  i  ith 
of  December  1702  he  rechristened  the  little  fortress  he  had 
captured,  by  a  new  and  symbolic  name,  Schlusselburg  (Key 
of  the  Sea). 

Next  came  the  capture  of  Nienschantz,  at  the  very  mouth 
of  the  Neva,  in  April  1703,  a  personal  success  for  the  Captain 
of  Bombardiers,  Peter  Miha'iiof,  who  there  brought  his  bat- 
teries into  play.  A  month  later,  the  artilleryman  had  be- 
come a  sailor,  and  had  won  Russia's  first  naval  victory. 
Two  regiments  of  the  guard  manned  thirty  boats,  surrounded 
two  small  Swedish  vessels,  which,  in  their  ignorance  of  the 
capture  of  Nienschantz,  had  ventured  close  to  the  town, 
took  possession  of  them,  and  murdered  their  crews.  The 
victor's  letters  to  his  friends  are  full  of  the  wildest  and  most 
childish  delight,  and  there  was,  we  must  admit,  some  reason 

*  7V(2Z'c/f  (Amsterdam,  1718),  vol.  i.  p.  52. 

*  Solovicf,  vol.  xiv.  p.  346. 


3o8  PETER  THE  GREAT 

for  this  joy.^  He  had  reconquered  the  historic  estuary, 
through  which,  in  the  ninth  centur\',  the  first  X'arej^s  had 
passed  southward,  towards  Grecian  skies.  On  the  i6th  of  the 
following;  May,  wooden  houses  began  to  rise  on  one  of  the 
neighbouring  islets.  These  houses  were  to  multiply,  to  grow 
into  palaces,  and  finally  to  be  known  as  St.  Petersburg. 

Peter's  conquests,  and  newly-founded  cities,  disturbed 
Charles  XI I.  but  little.  '  Let  him  build  towns  ;  there  will  be 
all  the  more  for  us  to  take  ! '  Peter,  and  his  arm}-,  had,  so 
far,  where  Charles  was  concerned,  only  had  to  do  with  small 
detachments  of  troops,  scattered  apart,  and  thus  foredoomed 
to  destruction.  The  Russians  took  advantage  of  this  fact  to 
pursue  their  advantage,  strengthening  and  entrenching  them- 
selves, both  in  Ingria  and  Livonia.  In  July  1704,  Peter  was 
present  at  the  taking  of  Derpt.  In  August  he  had  his  re- 
venge for  his  disaster  at  Narva,  and  carried  the  town,  after  a 
murderous  assault.  Already,  in  November  1703,3  longed- 
for  guest  had  appeared  in  the  mouth  of  the  Neva,  a  foreign 
trading  vessel,  laden  with  brandy  and  salt.  Menshikof,  the 
governor  o{  Piterburg,  entertained  the  captain  at  a  banquet, 
and  presented  him  with  500  florins  for  himself,  and  thirty 
crowns  for  each  of  his  sailors.- 

Meanwhile,  Charles  Xll.  tarried  in  I'olancl,  where 
Augustus'  affairs  were  going  from  bad  to  worse.  A  Diet 
convened  at  Warsaw,  in  February  1704,  proclaimed  his 
downfall.  After  the  disappearance  of  James  Sobieski, 
whose  candidature  was  put  a  stop  to  by  an  ambuscade, 
into  which  the  dethroned  king  lured  the  son  of  the 
deliverer  of  Vienna,  Charles,  who  was  all-powerful,  put 
forward  that  of  Stanislaus  Leszczynski.  Though  he  gave 
little  thought,  just  then,  to  Russia,  and  to  the  Russian 
Sovereign,  the  Tsar  was  beginning  to  be  alarmed  as  to 
the  consequences  which  the  Swedish  king's  position  in 
Poland,  and  in  Saxony,  might  entail  on  himself  Charles 
was  sure  to  end  by  retracing  his  steps,  and  an  encounter 
between  Sheremetief  and  Locwenhaujjt,  at  Ilemauerthorf  in 
Courland  (15th  July,  1705),  clearly  proved  that  the  Russian 
army,  unless  in  the  case  of  disproportionate  numerical 
superiority  over  the  enemy,  was  not  yet  capable  of  resist- 
ing   well-commanded    Swedish    troops.      On    this    occasion, 

'  .Solovief,  vol.  xiv.  p.  349. 

2  Moscow  Gazette,  Dec.  15,  1703. 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,  1700-1709  309 

Sheremetief  lost  all  his  infantry,  and  was  himself  severely 
wounded.^ 

What  then  was  Peter  to  do?  He  must  work  on,  increase 
his  resources,  and  add  to  his  experience.  If  Sheremetief 
and  his  likes  proved  unequal  to  their  task,  he  must  find 
foreign  generals  and  instructors,  technical  and  other,  he  must 
keep  patience,  he  must  avoid  all  perilous  encounters,  he  must 
negotiate,  and  try  to  obtain  peace,  even  at  the  price  of 
parting  with  some  of  the  territory  he  had  conquered.  The 
years  between  1705  and  1707  were  busy  ones  for  him. 
Within  the  borders  of  his  country  he  was  absorbed  by  his 
mighty  efforts  at  military  and  economic  organisation. 
Without  them,  and  even  in  the  farthest  corners  of  Europe, 
he  was  carrying  on  an  eager  and  active  diplomatic  cam- 
paign. I  shall  refer,  later,  to  the  first  portion  of  this 
strenuous  task.  A  few  words  as  to  the  second  must 
follow  here. 


Ill 

The  Russian  diplomatists  of  that  period  found  their  task 
a  most  ungrateful  one.  The  European  Cabinets  of  the  day 
were  still  in  the  frame  of  mind  with  which  the  shameful  defeat 
at  Narva,  in  1700,  had  inspired  them.  Prince  Peter  Galitzin, 
overwhelmed  with  mortifications,  cried  out  to  be  released 
from  his  post  at  Vienna.  Matvieief,  who  was  only  given 
2CK)0  roubles  a  year,  and  expected  to  make  a  good  figure  as 
the  Tsar's  Ambassador  to  the  Hague,  and  who,  consequently, 
complained  bitterly  of  his  poverty,  received  orders  to  nego- 
tiate a  loan  in  exchange  for  a  body  of  troops  to  be  employed 
against  France.  He  was  immediately  asked  whether  the 
troops  he  was  empowered  to  offer  '  were  those  that  had  forced 
the  King  of  Sweden  to  capitulate  '  ?  Besides,  the  Dutch, — 
a  practical  and  far-seeing  people, — viewed  the  establishment 
of  Russia  on  the  Baltic  coast  with  marked  disfavour.  In 
1705,  Matvieief  ventured  on  a  journey  to  Paris, — at  which 
place,  since  the  year  1703,  the  Tsar  had  only  kept  a  Resident, 
who  carried  no  particular  weight,  named  Postnikof, — and 
frankly  admitted  that  he  could  not  induce  any  one  there  to 

^  Adierfeld,  Histoire  Militaire  de  Charles  XII.  (Paris,  1741),  vol.  ii.  p.  522; 
Oustrialof,  vol.  iv.  p.  376. 


310  PKTER  THE  GREAT 

take  him  seriousl}-.^  Since  1701,  Dimitri  Galitziii  had  been 
striving;"  to  L^ain  the  confirmation  of  the  treaty  ne<;otiatcd  by 
OukraVntsof  at  Constantinople,  and  further,  demandint^  the 
rii^ht  to  free  navigation  of  the  Black  Sea.  But  the  Turks 
woukl  not  even  permit  the  Russian  Envoys  to  arrive  at  Con- 
stantino[)le  by  'their  water.'  Yet,  and  for  the  first  time, 
they  agreed  to  receive  a  permanent  Russian  Minister  at 
Adrianople.  Ikit  Peter  ToIstoY,  who  was  aj^pointed  to  this 
post,  vainh- endeavoured  to  induce  them  to  make  a  diversion 
in  the  cHrcction  of  Germany.  All  that  could  be  said  was, 
that,  for  the  moment,  no  danger  threatened  Peter  from  that 
side. 

Towards  the  end  of  1705,  he  began  to  think  of  acquiring 
that  third  ally  on  whom  Patkul  had  relied  for  his  original  plan 
of  combination.  And  he  despatched  the  Livonian  to  Berlin. 
This  strange  and  enigmatic  personage  has  been  made  the 
subject  of  a  poet's  verse.  Gutzkow  has  turned  the  Land- 
junker  into  the  heroic  champion  of  his  race,  and  even  history 
does  not  appear  to  me,  so  far,  to  have  done  him  full  justice."^ 
When  Patkul  first  comes  upon  the  scene,  he  does  certainly 
appear  as  the  defender  of  the  rights  of  his  country,  or,  at  all 
events,  cf  his   caste,  against  the  encroachments   of  Charles 

XI.  But,  even  then,  he  gives  us  the  impression  of  a  man 
who  plays  a  part,  rather  than  of  one  who  fulfils  a  mandate. 
We  see  no  mandatories  ;  he  does,  indeed,  treat  with  Augustus, 
in  the  name  of  the  Livonian  nobility,  but  his  powers  appear 
far  from  regular,  and  he  is  left  forsaken  in  his  exile.  Even 
at  the  very  summit  of  his  short  political  career,  he  keeps  all 
the  outward  appearances  of  an  adventurer. 

And  fate  was  against  all  his  enterprises.  An  appeal  to 
Poland  was  part  of  the  national  tradition  of  his  country,  but, 
in  the  present  condition  of  that  republic,  divided  and  torn  by 
contrary  factions,  the  only  means  of  reaching  the  State  was 

*  Solovief,  vol.  XV.  pp.  44-69. 

*  Yet  see  Forster,  Die  Hc/e  u.  die  Cahinttte  Europds,  vol.  iii. ;  .ind  larochowski, 
PatkitCs  Ausi^atig  (Ascites  Archiv  fiir  Sachsische  G.),  which  seem  to  me  to 
approach  most  nearly  to  historical  accuracy  ;  comji.  Bcrnouilli,  _/(?//.  A',  von 
PatkiiFs  Berichte ;  Otto  v.  Vv'ernich,  Der  Livlander,  J.  K.  von  Patkul ; 
C.  Shirren,  l.ivl.  Antwort,  1869  ;  Fr.  Bieneniann,  Aiis  baltischer  Vorzeit,  vol.  vi. 
1870  ;  Otto  .Sjofjren,  /.   R.   Patkul ;  C.  Schirren,    Uebcr  F.  F.  Carlsotii  Carl 

XII.  (Gutting.  Gel.  Aiiz.,  1883):  E.  Rodcmann,  I.eii>nitzeit^s  Plan,  etc.,  1883; 
C.  Schirren,  Patkul  uiid  I.eibuitz;  Mittlt.  aus  d.  UtI.  G.,  vol.  xiii. ,  1S84)  ;  G. 
Mcltit;,  /.  A',  von  Patkul  (Nordische  Rundiihau,  vol.  iii.,  1885);  11.  v.  lirui- 
ningk,  PatkuUana  (Mitt/ieil  a.  d.  l.ivl.  G.,  vol.  .\iv.,  18S6). 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,   1700-1709  311 

through  its  lately  chosen  chief,  and  that  chief,  under  the 
most  seductive  of  appearances,  hid  what  was  probably  the 
vilest  and  most  corrupt  nature  in  the  whole  of  Europe. 
Patkul's  moral  sense,  never  of  the  highest,  could  not  stand 
against  this  intercourse,  and  the  result  was  soon  evident  in 
the  disfigured  and  degraded  condition  of  his  mission.  The 
patriot  dwindled  into  a  mere  vulgar  intriguer,  and  the  defence 
of  Livonia  was  lowered,  in  his  hands,  to  an  odious  traffic  in 
the  most  vital  interests  of  the  country.  The  period,  alas ! 
was  only  too  favourable  to  such  transmutations.  Patkul's 
story  is  on  a  par  with  those  of  Goertz  and  Struensee. 

The  Livonian  adventurer  did  not  even  possess  the  qualities 
necessary  for  his  undertaking.  He  could  not  control  his 
nerves.  He  was  restless  and  impatient,  sarcastic  and  violent, 
and,  in  spite  of  great  intelligence  and  knowledge,  he  was  both 
frivolous  and  superficial.  He  could  not  govern  his  tongue, 
still  less  his  pen,  and  thus  disobliged  the  Polish  nobih'ty, 
whom  he  treated  with  disdain,  and  fell  out  with  the  Saxon 
Ministers  and  Generals,  on  whom,  by  means  of  pamphlets, 
which  he  scattered  broadcast,  he  threw  the  responsibility  of 
faults  which,  if  not  absolutely  personal  to  himself,  were,  at 
all  events,  common  to  him  and  others.  Let  me  add,  for  the 
honour  of  his  memory,  that  he  was  incapable  of  entirely 
identifying  himself  with  the  part  he  tried  to  play.  Thus,  in 
1704,  he  travelled  to  Berlin,  bearing  a  proposal  for  the 
division  of  the  Polish  provinces  between  Prussia  and  Russia. 
Yet  that  very  same  year,  one  of  his  letters,  addressed  to  the 
Chancellor  Golovin,  makes  a  strong  appeal  to  his  own 
national  traditions,  as  against  Russia,  and  for  Poland.^  Con- 
sequently, he  ended  by  having  no  firm  standing  at  all.  He 
was  the  confidant  of  Augustus,  whose  character  he  professed 
to  despise,  and  the  close  adviser  of  Peter,  whose  despotism, 
so  he  declared,  '  infinitely  displeased  him.'  He  floundered 
in  an  inextricable  confusion  of  machinations,  and  political 
attempts,  all  of  them  more  or  less  perilous.  In  1703,  he 
conspired  to  ruin  the  Saxon  Chancellor,  Count  Beichlingen, 
and  all  he  attained  by  that  Minister's  fall  was  to  make  more 
enemies  for  himself  In  1704,  he  commanded  the  auxiliary 
troops  of  the  Tsar  quartered  in  Saxony,  and  was  well  beaten, 
with  them,  under  the  walls  of  Thorn.  He  agreed  to  go  to 
Berlin  to  negotiate  an  alliance,  and  after  he  had  departed 

*  Zaluski,  vol.  iv.  p.  285. 
21  - 


312  PETER  THE  GREAT 

empty-handed,  he  wrote  to  the  rrussian  Ministers,  '  that  he 
was  weary  of  the  affairs  of  the  King  of  Poland,  and  was 
ready  to  make  his  peace  with  the  King  of  Sweden.'  ^  Wearied 
at  last  by  all  these  comings  and  goings,  perceiving  thc\'  had 
brought  him  nothing,  and  only  (jj)cned  an  ab)-ss  beneath  his 
feet,  sick  at  heart,  and  threatened  on  every  side,  he  lingered 
in  Dresden,  because  he  desired  to  marry  a  beautiful  widow, 
Sophia  Von  Rumohr,  Countess  Von  Einsiedel,  the  richest 
match  in  Saxony.  It  was  the  second  occasion  on  which  a 
woman  was  to  have  a  fatal  influence  upon  his  destiny,  and 
this  time  the  influence  hurried  him  to  his  end. 

The  announcement  of  his  marriage  fanned  the  hatred  and 
jealousy  of  his  enemies.  On  the  15th  of  December  1705,  in 
virtue  of  the  powers  conferred  on  him  by  Peter,  and  not 
exceeding,  though  he  may,  perhaps,  have  somewhat  strained 
them,  Patkul  signed  a  Convention  with  Count  Stratmann, 
whereby  all  the  Russian  auxilliary  troops  under  his  orders 
were  taken  into  the  Emperor's  paj'.  This  treaty  was  by  no 
means  against  the  interests  of  the  King  of  Poland.  The 
Emperor  undertook  never  to  recognise  Stanislaus,  so  long  as 
Augustus  lived,  and  even  to  support  the  Saxon  party  in 
Poland, — and  the  troops  in  question  were  dying  of  hunger  in 
Saxony.  But  the  possible  pretext  furnished  by  Patkul's 
interpretation  of  his  powers,  was  seized  forthwith,  and  within 
four  days  of  the  signature  of  the  treaty,  the  '  Tsar's  commis- 
sioner' was  arrested. 

Peter  intervened,  but  very  half-heartedly,  in  his  defence. 
Menshikof,  his  chief  adviser,  had  been  won  over  by  the 
Saxon  Ministers.^  Then  came  long  months  of  discussion; 
the  Tsar's  protests  were  measured  and  discreet ;  those  of 
Patkul  far  more  violent,  and  supported  by  pamphlets,  which, 
imprisoned  though  he  was,  he  found  means  to  publish  and 
disseminate.  At  last  Augustus,  defeated  over  and  over 
again,  tracked  and  hunted,  reduced  to  despair,  as  regards 
military  matters,  by  Charles  XII.,  beaten  on  the  diplomatic 
field  by  a  Swedish  prisoner  named  Arved  Horn,  was  induced, 
on  the  24th  of  September  1706,  to  sign  the  ignominious 
peace  of  Altranstadt,  the  iith  Article  of  which  stipulated 
that  Patkul  should  be  given  up.     The  King  of  Poland  has 

^   Dresden  Archives,  Docii incuts  (oniiectcd  with  the  arrest  of  General  Patkul^ 
No.  3516;  C'tipenhafjen  t\xc\\\\&%,  JessetCs  Reports^  1703-S- 
"^  Herrmann,  Geschiehtt  Kusslands,  vol.  iv.  p.  20t. 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,  1700-1709  313 

been  credited  with  the  intention  of  allowing  the  prisoner  to 
escape,  after  the  signature  of  the  treaty.  There  are  no 
grounds  for  supposing  hitn  capable  of  such  generosity,  nor 
the  slightest  mention  of  anything  of  the  kind  in  the  Dresden 
archives.  Nothing  but  a  note  from  the  Sovereign,  ordering 
the  betrothal  ring  found  on  the  prisoner's  person,  to  be  given 
to  the  Countess  Von  Einsicdel,  which  evidently  proves  that, 
in  the  king's  mind,  he  was  a  doomed  man.  In  vain  did  the 
Grand  Treasurer  of  Poland,  Przebendowski,  venture  to 
remind  him  that,  at  the  Peace  of  Karlowitz,  the  Turks  them- 
selves refused  to  deliver  up  Rakoczy  !  ^ 

Augustus'  behaviour,  on  this  occasion,  was  of  a  piece  with 
his  whole  life.  Peter's  casts  a  blot  upon  his  glory.  Patkul 
was  made  over  to  the  Swedes  during  the  night  of  the  5th 
April  1707  ;  was  dragged,  for  some  time,  wherever  Charles 
XII.  was  pleased  to  go,  was  finally  tried  and  condemned  by 
a  court-martial,  and,  on  the  loth  of  October,  was  broken  on 
the  wheel  at  Kazimierz  in  Poland.  He  was  struck  fifteen 
times  with  an  unshod  wheel  by  a  peasant  who  performed  the 
executioner's  office,  and  all  the  time  he  cried,  'Jesus,  Jesus  ! ' 
After  four  more  strokes  his  groans  were  silenced,  but  he  still 
had  strength  to  crawl  to  the  block  prepared  for  another 
execution,  and  to  murmur,  '  Kopf  ab  ! '  (Cut  off  my  head  ! ) 
Colonel  Waldow,  who  was  in  charge  of  the  execution, 
granted  this  final  request,  but  four  blows  from  the  axe  were 
requisite  to  put  the  poor  wretch  out  of  his  pain.'^ 

Diplomac)/,  as  we  have  seen,  served  Peter  but  ill,  and 
Arved  Horn's  triumph  over  Patkul,  clenched  as  it  was  by 
the  defection  of  Augustus,  imperilled  the  safety  of  the 
Russian  armies.  In  the  beginning  of  1706,  when  they  were 
shut  up  in  Grodno,  where  Menshikof  and  Ogilvy  were 
squabbling  for  the  chief  command,  they  ran  the  narrowest 
risk  of  being  captured  by  Charles.  The  sudden  breaking  up 
of  the  frozen  Niemen,  which  prevented  the  King  of  Sweden 
from  crossing  the  river,  permitted  the  Russians  to  beat  a 
precipitate  retreat,  leaving  their  artillery  and  baggage  behind 
them.  Peter,  who  on  this  occasion,  once  agaiii,  avoided 
sharing  the  fortune  of  his  troops,  caused  cannon  to  be  fired 
at  Kronslot  in  honour  of  the  victor}'!'^     In  the  beginning 

'  Dresden  Archives,  I'ook  3617. 

^  PalkuFs  Berhhte,  vol.  iii.  p.  300  ;  Forstcr,  Die  Hofe,  vol.  iii.  p.  404  ;  Lvir.d- 
blad,  vol.  i.'p.  40S  ;   Theatncn  Etiropsum  (1707),  p.  281. 
*  Ouslrialof,  vol.  iv,  p.  475. 


314  PETER  THE  GREAT 

of  October,  a  more  t^ciiuine  triumph  had  given  him  some 
prestige,  and  would  appear  to  have  crowned  his  alHancc 
with  tlie  King  of  Poland  with  its  first  success.  With 
Menshikof,  who,  Hke  himself,  was  ignorant  of  what  had 
happened  at  Altranstadt  five  days  previously,  and  carrying 
his  faithless  ally,  who  still  carefully  concealed  his  treachery, 
with  him,  he  had  defeated  the  Swedish  troops  under 
Martlefeldt,  before  the  walls  of  Kalisz.  But  the  news  of 
Augustus'  defection  shortly  transpired,  and  Peter  was  left 
alone  to  face  the  formidable  adversary,  whom  Menshikof 
and  his  soldiers  were  quite  unable  to  resist. 

Peter's  relations  with  the  King  of  Poland  betray  an  evident 
lack  of  foresight  in  the  first  instance,  and,  eventually,  an 
equal  absence  of  tact.  For  several  years  the  charm  which 
bound  these  two  men,  really  so  unsuited  to  each  other,  had 
ceased  to  work.  Peter  had  perceived  all  the  meannesses 
which  the  Polish  monarch  concealed  under  his  brilliant 
exterior,  and  Augustus  had  become  aware  that  when  he  had 
accepted  an  annual  subsidy,  raised,  in  1703,  to  the  sum  of 
300,000  roubles,  as  the  price  of  his  alliance,  he  had  been 
duped.  Two  clays  after  the  signature  of  the  Treat)-  which 
ensured  him  this  remuneration,  Charles  took  possession  of 
Elbing,  and  raised,  from  that  one  city,  a  contribution  of 
200,000  crowns.  And  the  Tsar's  subsidy,  always  very 
irregularly  paid,  ended  by  failing  altogether  ;  for  Peter  ran 
short  of  money.  Hence  it  came  about  that,  from  the  year 
1702,  Augustus,  with  his  usual  unrcliableness  and  dishonesty, 
began  to  enter  into  various  independent  negotiations.  In 
the  month  of  January,  his  former  mistress,  Aurora  Von 
Koenigsmark,  the  mother  of  the  great  Maurice  de  Saxp, 
appeared  in  Charles  XII. 's  camp  on  the  frontiers  of  Courland ; 
she  gained  nothing  by  her  journey,  for  the  hero  obstinately 
refused  to  receive  her,  and  she  was  driven  to  console  herself 
by  rh)'ming  the  following  verses: — 

'  D'ou  vient,  jeune  Roi,  qu'avcc  tant  de  meiite 
Vous  ayez  peu  de  vrai  bonheur,' 

following  on  which  sentiment,  and  still  in  verse,  she  proceeded 
to  lavish  her  consolations  on  Augustus  himself,  assuring 
him  that  the  friendship  of  so  virtuous  a  monarch  as  the  King 
of  Sweden  was  worth  far  more  than  the  throne  of  Poland.^ 

'  Laniberty,  vol.  iv.  p.  292. 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,  1700- 1709  315 

Peter  was  well  aware  of  this  attempt  on  Augustus' 
part,  and  of  several  others  which  followed  it,  and  did  not 
hesitate  to  take  similar  measures  of  his  own.  After  having 
offered  the  Polish  crown  to  James  Sobieski,  he  fell  back  on 
Rakocz}',  with  whom  his  plenipotentiaries  signed  a  formal 
treaty.^  Then,  through  the  intervention  of  the  Dutch,  and, 
when  they  retired,  through  Great  Britain,  he  endeavoured  to 
make  his  separate  peace  with  Sweden.  Matvicief  was  sent 
from  the  Hague  to  London,  in  1706,  with  orders  to  buy  over 
Marlborough  and  Godolphin.  Marlborough  refused  all 
pecuniary  offers — he  may  have  had  doubts  as  to  the  Tsar's 
solvency — and,  on  his  expressing  his  preference  for  landed 
property,  he  was  invited  to  choose  between  Kief,  Vladimir, 
or  Siberia,  with  a  guaranteed  income  of  50,000  crowns.  This 
matter  fell  through,  on  the  conditions  of  peace  insisted  on 
by  Peter — the  possession  of  the  mouth  of  the  Neva,  and  the 
adjacent  sea-coast.  Then  came  the  turn  of  France,  then 
that  of  Austria.  Desalliers,  an  agent  employed  by  F'rance 
in  Transylvania,  appeared  at  Versailles,  and  offered  the 
services  of  a  whoH  Russian  army,  to  be  used  according  to 
the  will  of  the  most  Christian  king.  Baron  Huissen,  a  former 
tutor  to  the  Tsarevitch  Alexis,  was  sent  to  Vienna,  with  an 
offer  of  a  body  of  Cossacks,  to  be  employed  against  tlie 
Hungarian  insurgents.  But  wheresoever  he  applied,  the 
Tsar's  demands  were  thought  too  exacting,  and  besides, 
the  prospect  of  any  intercourse  between  the  Cossacks  and 
the  Servian  neighbours  of  Hungary,  was  far  from  pleasing 
to  the  Emperor.  Two  other  attempts,  made  simultaneously 
— one  at  Berlin,  where  Ismailof,  Peter's  envoy,  tempted 
Count  Wartemberg  with  a  promise  of  100,000  crowns — and 
the  other  at  Copenhagen,  where  the  same  messenger  was 
commissioned  to  offer  Narva  and  Derpt  to  the  Danes,  met 
with  no  better  success.- 

But  Peter,  in  spite  of  all  these  efforts,  and  the  com- 
promising negotiations  in  which,  like  his  ally,  he  indulged, 
flattered  himself  he  was  to  keep  both  his  ally  and  his 
alliance,  and  enjoy  all  the  advantages  therefrom  accruing. 
The  Treaty  of  Altranstadt  took  him  b)-  surprise,  and  found 
him  quite  unprepared.  He  soon  made  good  his  mistake, 
took  a  swift   decision,  and   adopted   the   course  which  was 

'  Kotirakin  Papers,  vol.  v.  pp.  xviii,  14. 
*  Solovief,  vol.  XV.  p.  198,  etc. 


3l6  PETER  THE  GREAT 

infallibly  to  briiii;  him  final  victory.  lie  evacuated  Poland, 
retired  backward,  and,  pushiiiL]^  forward  the  preparations 
which  Charles's  long  sta)-  in  Saxony  had  j)crmitted  him  to 
carry  on  with  great  activit)',  he  resolved  that  the  battle  should 
be  fought  on  his  ground,  and  at  his  chosen  time.  He  took 
fresh  patience,  he  resolved  to  wait,  to  wear  out  his  adversary, 
to  draw  back  steadily,  and  leave  nothing  but  a  void  behind 
him.  Thus  he  would  force  the  enemy  to  advance  across  the 
desert  plains  he  had  deliberately  devastated,  and  run  the 
terrible  risk,  which  had  always  driven  back  the  ancient  foes 
of  his  country,  whether  Turks,  Tartars,  or  Poles. — a  winter 
sojourn  in  the  heart  of  Russia.  This  was  to  be  the  final 
round  of  the  great  fight.  The  Tsar,  as  he  expressed  it,  was 
to  set  ten  Russians  against  every  Swede,  and  time,  and 
space,  and  cold,  and  hunger,  were  to  be  his  backers. 

IV 

Charles,  the  most  taciturn  General  who  ever  lived,  never 
revealed  the  secret  inspiration  which  drove  him  to  play  his 
adversary's  game,  by  marching  afresh  on  Grodno.  During 
the  preceding  j'ear,  he  had  seemed  to  give  the  law  to 
Europe,  from  his  camp  in  Sa.xon^^  France,  which  had  been 
vanquished  at  Hochstadt  and  Ramillies,  turned  a  pleading 
glance  towards  him,  and  the  leader  of  the  victorious  allies, 
Marlborough  himself,  solicited  his  help.  I  see  no  likelihood 
that  the  great  leader  was  actuated  by  a  desire  to  take 
advantage  of  the  revolt  amongst  the  Bashkirs,  which,  at  that 
moment,  was  giving  Peter  some  trouble.  In  February  1708, 
the  insurgents  were  only  thirty  versts  from  Kazan.  But 
Kazan  was  a  long  way  off,  and  Peter  possessed  many 
resources  in  that  quarter.  He  soon  contrived  to  embroil  the 
rebels  with  their  Kalmuk  neighbours.  On  the  Don,  where, 
almost  at  the  same  moment,  a  second  Razin  made  his 
appearance,  the  Tsar  was  equally  successful.  Prince  George 
Dolgorouki,  who  had  been  sent  into  that  country,  in  1707, 
to  check  the  emigration  of  the  local  population,  which  had 
taken  on  alarming  proportions, —  every  one  moving  towards 
that  Eden  guarded  by  the  cataracts  of  the  Dnieper,  called 
the  Zaporoje, — came  into  collision  with  some  Cossack  troops, 
coinmandcd  by  an  individual  named  l^oulavin,  and  perished 
with  all  his  men.      But  immcdiatel>-  afterwards,  the  victors 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,  1700- 1709  317 

fell  out  amongst  themselves,  were  beaten  piecemeal,  and 
Boulavin  blew  out  his  brains.^ 

Charles  may  have  had  an  idea  of  making  Grodno  his  base 
for  a  spring  attack  on  the  Tsar's  new  conquests  in  the 
North.  This  supposition  would  seem  to  have  been  the  one 
accepted  by  Peter,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  orders  given,  just 
at  this  time,  to  ensure  the  safety  of  Livonia  and  Ingria,  by 
completing  their  devastation  ;  and  these  very  orders  may 
have  induced  the  King  of  Sweden  to  abandon  his  original 
design,  in  favour  of  another,  the  wisdom  of  which  is  still 
contested  by  experts,  but  which,  it  cannot  be  denied,  was  of 
noble  proportions.  Charles,  too,  had  found  an  ally,  to  set 
against  those  natural  ones  with  which  Russia  had  furnished 
the  Tsar,  and  he  had  found  him  within  the  borders  of  the 
Tsar's  country.     The  name  of  this  ally  was  Mazeppa. 

The  stormy  career  of  the  famous  Hetman,  so  dramatic, 
both  from  the  historic  and  domestic  point  of  view, — from 
that  adventure  with  the  pan  Falbowski,  so  naively  related 
by  Pasek,  down  to  the  Romance  with  Matrena  Kotchoubey, 
which  coloured  the  last  and  tragic  incidents  of  his  existence, 
— is  so  well  known  that  I  will  not  narrate  it  here,  even  in  the 
concisest  form.  Little  Russia  was  then  passing  through  a 
painful  crisis, — the  consequence  of  Shmielnicki's  efforts  at 
emancipation,  which  had  been  warped  and  perverted  by 
Russian  intervention.  The  Polish  Lords,  who  formerly 
oppressed  the  country,  had  been  replaced  by  the  Cossacks, 
who  not  only  ground  down  the  native  population,  but  railed 
at,  and  quarreled  with,  their  own  chief  The  Hetmans  and 
the  irregular  troops  were  at  open  war,  the  first,  striving  to 
increase  their  authority,  and  make  their  power  hereditary, 
the  others  defending  their  ancient  democratic  constitution. 
The  Swedish  war  increased  IVIazeppa's  difficulties.  He 
found  himself  taken  at  a  disadvantage  between  the  claims 
of  the  Tsar,  who  would  fain  have  his  Cossacks  on  every 
battlefield  in  Poland,  Russia,  and  Livonia,  and  the  resistance 
of  the  Cossacks  themselves,  who  desired  to  remain  in  their 
o\\  n  country,  l^eing  himself  of  noble  Polish  birth,  brought 
up  by  the  Jesuits,  having  served  King  John  Casimir  of 
Poland,  and  sworn  allegiance  to  the  Sultan,  he  saw  no 
reason  for  sacrificing  his  interests,  much  less  his  life,  for 
Peter's   benefit.     The  approach  of  Charles  XII.  made  him 

'  Solovief,  vol.  XV.  p.  259. 


3i8  rETP:R  THE  GREAT 

fear  he  mic^ht,  like  his  predecessor  Nalevaiko,  be  deserted 
by  his  own  followers,  and  f^iven  up  to  the  Poles.  He  declined 
offers  made  him  by  Leszczynski,  in  1705,  not  without 
rcinindincj  the  Tsar  that  the  temptation,  thus  honestly 
resisted,  was  the  fourth  which  had  been  offered  him.'  Then 
he  began  to  reflect.  His  Cossacks'  complaints  were  growinc^ 
louder  and  louder.  Peter  had  gone  so  far  as  to  try  to  send 
two  of  their  regiments  into  Prussia,  to  learn  German  drill. 
Mazcppn,  having  been  invited  by  Prince  Wisniowie^ki,  a 
Wolhynian  Polish  magnate,  to  stand  godfather  to  his 
daughter,  met  the  Prince's  mother,  Princess  Dolska,  in  his 
house,  and  formed  an  intimacy  with  her.  In  spite  of  his  age 
(according  to  Prokopovitch,  he  was  then  54,  while  Kngel 
makes  him  60,  and  Nordberg  76),  he  was  still  an  ardent 
lover.  Madame  P'albowska,  who,  like  himself,  had  been 
vilely  treated  by  her  fiercely  jealous  husband,  had  been 
succeeded  by  many  other  mistresses.  In  the  early  days  of 
Mazeppa's  intercourse  with  Princess  Dolska,  she  pretended 
to  plead  no  cause  but  that  of  Leszczynski,  for  whom  she 
greatl}'  desired  the  Tsar's  support.  Then  she  showed  her 
hand, — her  real  object  was  that  Leszczjmski  and  his 
victorious  protector  should  be  supported  through  thick  and 
thin,  even  against  Peter  himself  Mazeppa's  first  impulse 
was  one  of  anger  against  the  '  baba'  (gossip).  But  she  was 
a  clever  woman.  A  few  remarks,  carelessly  dropped,  made 
him  prick  his  ears.  She  had  been  at  Leopol,  where  she  had 
met  the  Russian  Generals  Sheremetief  and  Ronne,  and  had 
heard  them  foretell  the  early  deposition  of  the  Hetman,  and 
Menshikof's  succession  to  his  position.  The  idea  did  not 
appear  altogether  improbable  to  Mazeppa,  who  knew  that 
Peter's  collaborators  panted  to  establish  Russian  officialism 
in  the  Ukraine.  The  favourite  himself  had  even  dropped 
a  hint  one  day,  at  Kief,  and  in  his  cups,  upon  the  subject, 
and  was  already  taking  upon  himself  to  send  the  Cossack 
regiments  hither  and  thither,  without  reference  to  Mazeppa. 
Princess  Dolska  was  backed  by  Zalenski,  a  Jesuit,  the 
mouthpiece  of  Leszczynski  and  of  Charles,  and  not  a  word 
of  this  fresh  temptation  was  breathed  by  the  Cossack  leader 
to  the  Russian  Tsar. 

My   readers  know   the  story  of  the   Hetman's  final   love 
affair,  which  brought  about  Peter's  acquaintance  with   the 

^  Solovief,  vol.  XV.  p.  289. 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,  1700-1709  319 

facts  of  this  negotiation.  Mazeppa  had  seduced  the 
daughter  of  Kotchoubey,  a  Cossack  Chief,  and  the  father, 
out  of  revenge,  denounced  him  to  the  Tsar.  Unhappily  for 
himself,  the  proofs  he  furnished  were  not  conckisive.  The 
Tsar,^relying  on  his  own  constant  i^indness  to  the  Hetman, 
and  obstinately  regarding  him  as  representing  his  personal 
authority,  in  opposition  to  the  traditional  insubordination  of 
the  Cossacks, — allowed  himself  to  be  deceived  by  Mazeppa's 
protestations,  and  delivered  his  accuser  up  to  him.  Twenty 
times  in  the  past  twenty  years,  he  had  been  denounced,  and 
had  contrived  to  clear  himself.  He  caused  Kotchoubey  and 
his  confidant,  Iskra,  to  be  beheaded,  but  still  he  was  uneasy, 
— on  the  watch  for  a  possible  return  of  the  peril  lately  past. 
The  appearance  of  Charles  on  the  Russian  frontier  forced 
him  to  a  definite  resolution,  and,  in  the  spring  of  1708,  his 
emissaries  appeared  at  Radoshkovitse,  south-east  of  Grodno, 
where  Charles  had  established  his  head-quarters.^ 

The  King  of  Sweden's  idea,  at  that  decisive  moment, 
would  seem  to  have  been  to  take  advantage  of  the  Hetman's 
friendly  inclination,  to  find  his  way  into  the  heart  of  Russia, 
using  the  rich  Southern  Provinces  as  his  base,  to  stir  up, 
with  Mazeppa's  help,  the  Don  Cossacks,  the  Astrakhan 
Tartars,  and,  it  may  have  been,  the  Turks  themselves,  and 
thus  attack  the  Muscovite  Power  in  the  rear.  Then  Peter 
would  have  been  forced  back  upon  his  last  entrenchments, 
at  Moscow  or  elsewhere,  while  General  Luebecker,  who  was 
in  Finland  with  14,000  men,  fell  on  Ingria  and  on  St. 
Petersburg,  and  Leszczynski's  Polish  partisans,  with  General 
Krassow's  Swedes,  held  Poland.^ 

It  was  a  mighty  plan,  indeed,  but,  at  the  very  outset,  it 
was  sharply  checked.  Mazeppa  insisted  on  certain  condi- 
tions, and  these  conditions  Charles  thought  too  heavy.  The 
Hetman  agreed  that  Poland  should  take  the  Ukraine  and 
White  Russia,  and  that  the  Swedes  should  have  the 
fortresses  of  Mglin,  Starodoub,  and  Novgorod-Sievierski, 
but  he  himself  insisted  on  being  apportioned  Polotsk, 
Vitebsk,  and  the  whole  of  Courland,  to  be  held  in  fief. 
Thus  the  negotiations  were  delayed.  Meanwhile  Charles, 
perceiving  that  he  was  not  strong  enough  to  make  a  forward 
movement,  made  up  his  mind  to  send  for  Loewcnhaupt,  who 

'  Moscow  Archives,  Little-Russian  Affairs,  170S. 
'  Sarauw,  p.  238, 


320  PETER  THE  GREAT 

was  in  Livonia,  and  who  was  to  bring  him  i6,ooo  men  and 
various  stores.  But  the  Swedish  hero  had  not  reckoned 
fairl\-  with  distance,  and  with  time.  Many  precious  dajs, 
the  best  of  the  season,  fled  b)-,  before  his  orders  could  be 
obcN'cd.  And,  for  the  first  time,  he  showed  signs  of  un- 
ccrtaint}'  and  irresolution,  which  were  all  too  quickly- 
communicated  to  those  under  his  command.  Loewenhaupt 
grew  slower  than  usual.  Luebecker  slackened  his  activity, 
and  Mazeppa  began  to  play  his  double  game  again, — 
prudently  preparing  his  Cossacks  to  revolt,  in  the  name  of 
the  ancient  customs,  national  {privileges,  and  church  laws, 
which  Peter's  reforms  had  infringed, — fortif)ing  his  own 
residence  at  Batourin,  and  accumulating  immense  stores 
there,  but  still  continuing  to  pay  court  to  the  Tsar,  wearing 
the  German  dress,  flattering  the  Sovereign's  despotic  taste 
by  suggesting  plans  which  would  have  annihilated  the  last 
vestiges  of  local  independence,  and  accepting  gifts  sent  him 
by  Mcnshikof.^ 

And  so  the  summer  passed  away.  A  winter  campaign 
became  inevitable,  and  the  abyss  which  Peter's  unerring  eye 
had  scanned,  began  to  gape. 


It  was  not  till  June  that  Charles  XII.  left  Radoshkovitsc, 
and  marched  eastwards  to  l^orisov,  where  he  crossed  the 
Berezina.  Menshikof  and  Shcrcmctief  made  an  attempt  to 
stop  him,  on  the  3rd  of  July,  as  he  was  crossing  a  small  river 
called  the  Bibitch,  near  Molovtchin.  A  night  manoeuvre, 
and  a  wild  baj'onet  charge,  led  by  the  king  himself,  carried 
him  once  more  to  victory.  The  town  of  Mohilef  opened  its 
gates  to  the  Swedes,  but  there  Charles  was  forced  to  stay, 
and  lose  more  time  yet,  waiting  for  Loewenhaupt.  He 
marched  again,  early  in  August,  in  a  southerly  direction, 
and  his  soldiers  soon  found  themselves  in  the  grip  of  one 
of  Peter's  allies.  They  were  driven  to  support  themselves 
by  gathering  ears  of  corn,  which  they  ground  between  two 
stones.  Sickness  began  to  thin  their  ranks.  Their  three 
doctors,  so  the  fierce  troopers  said,  were  '  brandy,  garlic,  and 
death'!     Loewenhaupt  had  reached  Shklof,  and  was  sepa- 

^  Engel,  Geschichte  dcr  Ukraine  (Halle,  1796),  p.   303,010.;   Prokopovitch, 
Hiitory  of  Peter  the  Great  (in  Russian),  p.  17S,  etc. 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,  1700-1709  321 

rated  from  the  invading  army  by  two  streams,  the  Soja  and 
the  Dnieper,  between  which  Peter  had  taken  up  his  position. 
The  Swedish  general,  after  having  successfully  passed  the 
Dnieper,  was  met  at  Licsna,  on  the  9th  of  October,  by  a 
force  three  times  as  large  as  his  own,  and  Peter  was  able,  on 
the  following  day,  to  report  a  complete  victory  to  his  friends  : 
'8500  men  dead  on  the  field,  without  mentioning  those  the 
Kalmuks  have  hunted  into  the  forest,  and  700  prisoners!' 
According  to  this  reckoning,  Loewenhaupt,  who  could  not 
have  brought  more  than  11,000  troops  into  action,  should 
have  been  left  without  a  man  ;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  reached 
Charles  with  6700,  after  a  flank  march  which  all  military 
experts  consider  a  marvel.  But,  not  being  able  to  find  a 
bridge  across  the  Soja,  he  was  forced  to  abandon  his  artillery 
and  ali  his  baggage,  and  he  led  his  starving  troops  into  a 
famine-stricken  camp. 

There  was  bad  news,  too,  from  Ingria,  where  Luebecker 
had  also  been  defeated,  losing  all  his  baggage  and  3000 
first-class  troops.  Charles  grew  so  disconcerted  that  he  is 
reported  to  have  confessed  to  Gyllenkrook,  his  Quarter- 
master-General that  he  was  all  at  sea,  and  no  longer  had  any 
definite  plan.^  On  the  22nd  of  October,  he  reached  Moko- 
shin  on  the  Desna,  on  the  borders  of  the  Ukraine,  where  he 
had  expected  to  meet  Mazeppa.  Hut  the  old  leader  broke 
his  appointment.  He  still  desired  to  temporise,  and  was 
loath  to  take  any  decisive  resolution.  He  was  driven  to 
take  one,  at  last,  by  the  Cossacks  about  him,  who  were 
alarmed  at  the  idea  of  the  Russians  following  the  Swedes 
into  the  Ukraine.  It  would  be  far  better,  so  they  thought, 
to  join  the  latter  against  the  former.  One  of  these  Cossacks, 
Voinarovski,  who  had  been  sent  by  the  Hetman  to  Menshikof, 
had  returned  with  most  terrifying  news.  He  had  overheard 
the  German  officers  on  the  favourite's  staff,  speaking  of 
Mazeppa  and  his  followers,  say,  '  God  pity  those  poor 
wretches  ;  to-morrow  they  will  all  be  in  chains!'  Mazeppa, 
when  he  heard  this  report,  'raged  like  a  whirlwind,'  hurried 
to  Batourin  to  give  the  alarm,  and  then  crossed  the  Desna 
and  joined  the  Swedish  arm)-. 

It  was  too  late.  '1  he  popular  sentiment,  on  which  both 
he  and  Charles  had  reckoned  to  promote  an  insurrectionary 
movement,  confused    by   the   tergiversations   and    the   am- 

^  Lundblad,  vol.  ii.  p.  49. 


32a  PETER  THE  GREAT 

biguous  actions  of  the  Ilcliiian,  had  cjiiitc  gone  astray,  and 
lost  all  consistency.  All  Mazeppa  could  reckon  upon  was 
a  body  of  2000  faithful  troops :  not  enough  even  to  defend 
Batourin,  which  Menshikof  snatched  from  him  a  few  days 
later, — thus  depriving  the  Swedish  army  of  its  last  chance 
of  revictualling.  When  the  fortresses  of  Starodoub  and 
Novgorod  -  Sicvierski  closed  their  gates  against  him,  the 
whole  of  the  Ukraine  slipped  from  the  grasp  of  the  turn- 
coat chief,  and  his  new  allies.  His  effigy  was  first  hung,  and 
then  dragged  through  the  streets  of  Glouhof,  in  Peters  pre- 
sence ;  another  Hctman,  Skoropadski,  was  appointed  in  his 
place,  and  then  came  winter — a  cruel  winter,  during  which 
the  very  birds  died  of  cold. 

By  the  beginning  of  1709,  Charles's  effective  strength  had 
dwindled  to  nearly  20,000  men.  The  Russians  did  not  dare 
to  attack  him  as  yet,  but  they  gathered  round  him  in  an 
ever-narrowing  circle.  They  carried  his  advanced  posts, 
they  cut  his  lines  of  communication.  The  King  of  Sweden, 
to  get  himself  mere  elbow  room,  was  driven  to  begin  his 
campaign  in  the  month  of  January.  He  lost  1000  men 
and  48  officers  in  taking  the  paltry  town  of  Wespjik  (6th 
January).  By  this  time  the  game,  in  Mazeppa's  view,  was 
already  lost,  and  he  made  an  attempt  to  turn  his  coat  again, 
— offering  to  betray  Charles  into  I'eter's  hands,  if  Peter 
would  restore  him  his  office.  The  bargain  was  struck,  but 
a  letter  from  the  old  traitor,  addressed  to  Leszczynski, 
chanced  to  fall  into  the  Tsar's  hands,  and  made  him  draw 
back,  in  the  conviction  that  Mazeppa  was  utterly  unreliable.^ 
In  the  month  of  March,  the  near  approach  of  the  Swedish 
army,  then  advancing  on  Poltava,  induced  the  Zaporoje 
Cossacks  to  join  it.  But  the  movement  was  a  very 
partial  one,  and  Peter  soon  put  it  down, — by  means  of 
a  series  of  military  executions,  mercilessly  carried  out  by 
Menshikof,  and  of  various  manifestoes  against  the  foreign 
heretics,  'who  den}'  the  doctrines  of  the  true  religion,  and 
spit  on  the  picture  of  the  Blessed  Virgin.'  The  capture  of 
Poltava  thus  became  the  last  hope  of  Charles  and  his  army. 
If  they  could  not  seize  the  town,  they  must  all  die  of  hunger. 

The  fortifications  of  the  place  were  weak,  but  the  besieging 
army  was  sorely  changed  from  that  which  had  fought  under 
the  walls  of  Narva.     It  had   spent  too  long  a  time  in  fat 

*  Solovief,  vol.  XV.  p.  361. 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,   1700- 1709  323 

quarters,  in  Saxony  and  Poland,  to  be  fit  to  endure  this 
terrible  campaign.  Like  the  Russian  army  at  Narva,  it 
was  sapped  by  demoralisation,  before  it  was  called  on  to  do 
any  serious  fighting.  Even  amongst  the  Swedish  staff,  and 
in  the  king's  intimate  circle,  all  confidence  in  his  genius,  and 
his  lucky  star,  had  disappeared.  His  best  Generals,  Rchns- 
kold,  and  Gyllenkrook,  his  Chancellor,  Piper,  and  Mazeppa 
himself,  were  against  any  prolongation  of  the  siege,  which 
promised  to  be  a  long  one.  '  If  God  were  to  send  down 
one  of  his  angels,'  he  said,  '  to  induce  me  to  follow  your 
advice,  I  would  not  listen  to  him  ! '  ^  An  ineradicable  illu- 
sion, the  fruit  of  the  too  easy  victories  of  his  early  career, 
prompted  him  to  undervalue  the  forces  opposed  to  him.  He 
knew,  and  would  acknowledge,  nothing  of  that  new  Russia, 
the  mighty  upstanding  Colossus,  which  Peter  had  at  last 
succeeded  in  raising  up  in  his  path.  According  to  some 
authorities,  Mazeppa,  in  his  desire  to  replace  Batourin  by 
Poltava,  as  his  own  personal  appanage,  encouraged  him  in 
this  fatal  resolution.'-  But  it  may  well  have  been,  that  retreat 
had  already  become  impossible. 

It  was  long  before  Peter  made  up  his  mind  to  intervene  ; 
he  was  still  distrustful  of  himself,  desperately  eager  to  in- 
crease his  own  resources,  and  with  them  his  chances  of 
victory.  On  his  enemy's  side,  everything  contributed  to  this 
result.  By  the  end  of  June,  all  the  Swedish  ammunition  was 
exhausted,  the  invaders  could  use  none  of  their  artillery,  and 
hardly  any  of  their  fire-arms,  and  were  reduced  to  fighting 
with  cold  steel.  On  the  very  eve  of  the  decisive  struggle, 
they  were  left  without  a  leader.  During  a  reconnaissance 
on  the  banks  of  the  Vorskla,  which  ran  between  the  hostile 
armies,  Charles,  always  rash,  and  apt  to  expose  himself  un- 
necessarily, was  struck  by  a  bullet.  '  It  is  only  in  the  foot,' 
he  said,  smiling,  and  continued  his  examination  of  the 
ground.  But,  when  he  returned  to  camp,  he  fainted,  and 
Peter,  reckoning  on  the  moral  effect  of  the  accident,  at  once 
resolved  to  cross  the  river.  A  report,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
ran  through  the  Swedish  camp,  that  the  King,  convinced  of 
the  hopelessness  of  the  situation,  had  deliberately  sought 
death." 

Yet  ten  more  days  passed  by,  in  the  expectation  of  an 

^  Fryxell,  vol.  ii.  158.  -  Lundblad,  vol.  ii.  p.  104. 

=»  Ibid.,  p.  118. 


324  PETER  THE  GREAT 

attack  which  the  Russians  did  not  dare  to  make.  It  was 
("harlcs  who  took  action  at  last,  informing  his  Generals,  on 
the  26th  of  June  (7th  July)  that  he  would  give  battle  on  the 
following  morning.  He  himself  was  still  in  a  very  suffering 
condition,  and  made  over  the  command  to  Rehnskold,  a 
valiant  soldier,  but  a  doubtful  leader,  for  he  did  not  possess 
the  army's  confidence,  and,  according  to  Lundblad,  'hid  his 
lack  of  knowledge  and  strategical  powers  under  gloomy 
looks  and  a  fierce  expression.'  After  the  event,  as  was  so 
commonly  the  case  with  vanquished  generals,  he  was  accused 
of  treachery.  The  truth  would  seem  to  be,  that  Charles's 
obstinate  reserve,  and  habit  of  never  confiding  his  plans  and 
military  arrangements  to  any  third  person,  had  ended  by 
gradually  depri\ing  his  lieutenants  of  all  power  of  inde- 
pendent action.  In  his  presence  they  were  bereft  of  speech, 
and  almost  of  ideas.  All  Rehnskold  did  was  to  rage  and 
swear  at  every  one.  Peter,  meanwhile,  neglected  nothing 
likely  to  ensure  success.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  dress 
the  Novgorod  regiment — one  of  his  best — in  the  coarse 
cloth  {sii-yjiiiaga)  generally  reserved  for  newly-joined  recruits, 
in  the  hope  of  thus  deceiving  the  enemy.  This  stratagem, 
however,  completely  failed.  In  the  very  beginning  of  the 
battle,  Rehnskold  fell  on  the  regiment,  and  cut  it  to  pieces.^ 
The  Russian  centre  was  confided  to  Sheremetief,  the  right 
wing  to  General"  Ronne,  the  left  to  Menshikof.  Bruce  com- 
manded the  artillery,  and  the  Tsar,  as  usual,  retired  modestly 
to  the  head  of  a  single  regiment.  But  this  was  a  mere  dis- 
guise ;  in  real  fact,  he  was  everywhere,  going  hither  and 
thither,  in  the  forefront  of  the  battle,  and  lavishing  effort 
in  every  direction.  A  bullet  passed  through  his  hat,  another 
is  .said  to  have  struck  him  full  on  the  breast.  It  was  miracu- 
lously stopped  by  a  golden  cross,  set  with  precious  stones, 
given  by  the  monks  on  Mount  Athos  to  the  Tsar  ?Y'odor, 
and  which  his  successor  habitually  wore.  This  cross,  which 
certainly  bears  the  mark  of  some  j^rojectile,  is  still  preserved 
in  the  Ouspienski  Monastery,  at  Moscow. 

The  heroism,  and  sovereign  contempt  of  death,  betrayed 
by  Charles,  were  worthy  of  himself  Unable  to  sit  a  horse, 
he  caused  himself  to  be  carried  on  a  litter,  which,  when  it 
was  shattered  by  bullets,  was  replaced  b>'  another  made  of 
crossed  lances.     But  he  was  nothing  but  a  living  standard, 

^  Golikof,  vol.  xi.  p.  202. 


FROM  NARVA  TO  POLTAVA,  1700-1709  325 

useless,  thouc^h  sublime.  The  once  mighty  military  leader 
had  utterly  disappeared.  The  battle  was  but  a  wild  con- 
flict, in  which  the  glorious  remnants  of  one  of  the  most 
splendid  armies  that  had  ever  been  brought  together  — 
unable  to  use  its  arms,  leaderless,  hopeless  of  victory,  and 
soon  overwhelmed  and  crushed  by  superior  numbers  — 
struggled  for  a  space,  with  the  sole  object  of  remaining 
faithful  to  its  King.  At  the  end  of  two-  hours,  Charles 
himself  left  the  field  of  battle.  He  had  been  lifted  on  to  the 
back  of  an  old  horse  which  his  father  had  formerly  ridden, 
and  which  was  called  Brandklepper  (run  to  the  fire),  because 
he  was  always  saddled  when  a  fire  broke  out  in  the  city. 
This  charger  followed  the  vanquished  hero  into  Turkey,  was 
taken  by  the  Turks  at  I^ender,  sent  back  to  the  king,  taken 
again  at  Stralsund  in  171 5,  returned  to  its  owner  once 
more,  and  died  in  17 18 — the  same  year  as  his  master — 
at  the  age  of  forty-two.^  Poniatowski,  the  father  of  the 
future  King  of  Poland,  who  was  following  the  campaign  as 
a  volunteer  (Charles  had  refused  to  take  any  Polish  troops 
with  him  on  account  of  their  want  of  discipline),  rallied  one 
of  Colonel  Horn's  squadrons  to  escort  the  King,  and  re- 
ceived seventeen  bullets  through  his  leather  kaftan  while 
covering  the  royal  retreat.^  Field-Marshal  Rehnskold,  Piper, 
the  Chancellor,  with  all  his  subordinates,  over  150  officers, 
and  2000  soldiers,  fell  into  the  victor's  hands. 

The  Russians'  joy  was  so  extreme  that  they  forgot  to 
pursue  the  retreating  enemy.  Their  first  impulse  was  to 
sit  down  and  banquet.  Peter  invited  the  more  important 
prisoners  to  his  own  table,  and  toasted  the  health  of  his 
'  masters  in  the  art  of  war.'  The  Swedes,  who  still  numbered 
13.000  men,  had  time  to  pause  for  a  moment  in  their  own 
camp,  where  Charles  summoned  Loewenhaupt,  and,  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life,  was  heard  to  ask  for  advice,  'What  was 
to  be  done  ? '  The  General  counselled  him  to  burn  all 
\vaggons,  mount  his  infantry  soldiers  on  the  draught  horses, 
and  beat  a  retreat  towards  the  Dnieper.  On  the  30th  of 
June,  the  Russians  came  up  with  the  Swedish  army,  at  Perevo- 
lotchna  on  the  banks  of  the  river,  and,  the  soldiers  refusing 
to  fight  again,  Loewenhaupt  capitulated  ;  but  the  king  had 

^  Lundhlad,  vol.  ii.  p.  137. 

^  Kantecki,  Biography  of  Sia/u'slas  Pofiiatowski  (Posen,    iSSo)  (in  Polish), 
vol.  i.  p.  26. 


326  I'ETER  THE  GREAT 

time  to  cross  to  the  other  side.  Two  boats  lashed  together 
carried  his  carriaj^e,  a  few  officers,  and  the  war-chests  which 
he  had  filled  in  Saxon\'.  Mazeppa  contrived  to  find  a  boat 
for  himself,  and  loaded  it  with  two  barrels  of  t;old.^ 

At  Kief,  whither  Peter  proceeded  from  Poltava,  a  solemn 
thanksgiving  was  offered  up  in  the  church  of  St  Sophia,  and 
a  Little- Russian  monk,  PY-ofan  Prokojjovitch,  celebrated  the 
recent  victory,  in  a  fine  fiight  of  eloquence  :  '  When  our  neigh- 
bours hear  of  what  has  happened,  they  will  say,  it  was  not 
into  a  foreign  country  that  the  Swedish  army  and  the 
Swedish  power  ventured,  but  rather  into  some  mighty 
sea !  They  have  fallen  in,  and  disappeared,  even  as  lead  is 
swallowed  up  in  water!' 

The  Sweden  of  Gustavus  Adolphus  had  indeed  disap- 
peared. Charles  Xii.  was,  ere  long,  to  be  a  mere  knight- 
errant  at  Bender.  The  Cossack  independence,  too,  was  a 
thing  of  the  past.  Its  last  and  all  too  untrustworthy  repre- 
sentative, was  to  die  in  Turkey,  before  many  months  were 
out — of  despair,  according  to  Russian  testimony — of  poison 
voluntarily  swallowed,  according  to  Swedish  historians. 
The  poison  story  has  a  touch  of  likelihood  about  it,  for 
Peter  certainh'  proposed  to  exchange  Mazcppa's  person  for 
that  of  the  Chancellor  Piper.'-  The  cause  of  the  Leszczynski, 
too,  was  dead.  It  was  to  be  put  forward  again  by  France, 
but  for  the  benefit  of  France  alone.  And  with  the  Leszczyn- 
ski cause,  Poland  itself  had  passed  away,  and  lay  a  lifeless 
corpse,  on  which  the  vultures  were  soon  to  settle.  Out  of  all 
these  ruins  rose  the  Russian  power — its  Northern  hegemony, 
and  its  new  European  position,  which  henceforward  were  daily 
to  increase,  and  reach  immense,  immoderate  proportions. 
ICurope  played  a  special  part  in  the  festivities  which  graced 
the  return  of  the  victors  to  Moscow,  a  few  months  later. 
European  ideas,  traditions,  and  forms,  appeared  in  the 
triumphal  procession,  and  served  as  trappings  for  the 
trophies  of  victory.  Peter,  pla)'ing  the  part  of  Hercules, 
and  conquering  a  Swedish  Juno,  in  a  cortege  in  which 
Mars  figured,  attended  by  Furies  and  by  Fauns,  was  a  fit 
symbol  of  the  alliance  of  Russia  with  the  Greco-Latin 
civilisation  of  the  West.  Old  Muscovy — Eastern  and 
Asiatic — was  numbered  with  the  dead. 

^  Soluvief,  vol.  XV.  p.  37S.  ^  Ibid.,  vol.  xvi.  p.  42. 


CHAPTER    II 

FROM   THE   BALTIC   TO   THE   CASPIAN 

The  victory  of  Poltava  does  not  bring  peace  to  Russia — A  policy  of  general 
expansion — The  origin  of  PansLavism — European  alliances — The  Tsar's 
Diplomacy — His  awkwardness  and  blunders — Peter,  in  his  eagerness  to 
reach  the  West,  forgets  the  South — Diplomatic  struggle  at  Constantinople 
— Charles  Xil.  wins — Weighty  arguments — Declaration  of  War. 

Peter's  Plan  of  Campaign — Its  weakness — lie  forgets  the  lesson  of  the 
past — The  march  on  lassy — He  makes  the  same  mistake  as  Charles — 
Another  Ukraine  and  another  Mazeppa — The  Tartars  cut  the  Russian 
communications — The  Tsar  and  the  Russian  army  hemmed  in  on  the 
banks  of  the  Pruth — A  desperate  situation — Peter  flinches  again — His 
letter  to  the  Senate — -'The  throne  to  the  worthiest ' — Doubtful  authenti- 
city of  the  document — Catherine's  action — The  future  Tsarina's  diamonds 
— Salvation — The  Vizier  consents  to  treat — The  influence  of  Backsheesh 
— Unhoped-for  conditions — Azof  is  given  up — Peter  soon  recovers  from 
his  fright,  and  consoles  himself  for  his  losses — '  Matchless  acquisitions' — 
The  triumph  of  obstinacy — The  skirmish  at  Bender — Charles  XII.  a 
prisoner. 

The  allies  prevent  Peter  from  obtaining  peace  with  Sweden — Quarrels 
and  rivalries — The  Siege  of  Stralsund — Attempted  understandings  with 
England  and  Prussia — Peter  always  succeeds  better  when  he  acts  inde- 
pendently— The  Conquest  of  Finland — The  Tsar's  German  victories 
only  profit  Prussia — The  capture  of  Stettin,  and  the  Treaty  of  Sequestra- 
tion— Charles  XII.  reappears  at  Stralsund — Goertz  appears  on  the 
scene — The  capture  of  Wismar — Peter  has  served  the  King  of  Prussia 
again — Plan  for  a  Russo-Danish  Expedition. — Naval  demonstration  at 
Copenhagen — Peter  in  command  of  the  allied  squadrons  of  Denmark, 
Holland,  England  and  Russia — The  expedition  fails — Peter  is  blamed — 
His  intervention  in  German  affairs  rouses  universal  anger — English  irrita- 
tion— Plan  to  seize  the  Tsar's  person  and  sink  his  squadron — Peter's 
disgust  with  his  allies. 

^  Goerlz's  idea' — Plan  for  a  separate  understanding  between  Russia  and 
Sweden — French  origin  of  this  view— It  attracts  Peter — His  journey  to 
France — Secret  interview  with  Goertz — Treaty  of  Amsterdam,  between 
Russia,  France  and  Prussia — Acceptance  of  French  mediation — The 
Congress  of  Aland — The  death  of  Charles  xil.  puts  an  end  to  the 
negotiations — The  execution  of  Goertz. 

Renewal  of  negotiations  at  Aland — The  Swedes  resist — Coercion — Russian 
descent  on  Sweden — P'ngland  intervenes  in  Sweden's  favour — A  useless 
naval  demonstration — Diplomatic  intcrvcniicin  by  France — Campre<K)n — 
The  peace  of  Nystadt — The  joy  of  triumph — The  Imperial  title  — Admiral, 
and  Emperor  of  all  the  Russias — The  benefits  of  peace— War  atzain. 
o,  327 


328  PETER  THE  GREAT 

VI.  The  Eastern  frontier — The  road  to  India — Failure  of  early  efforts  in  this 
direction — P'resh  military  and  diplomatic  action  with  rc-j^ard  to  Persia  — 
\'c)lynski — The  ^reat  expedition  of  1722— Led  by  Peter  in  person — The 
taking  of  Derhent — A  forced  retreat — Turkey  and  P^n^land  inter- 
vene— A  temporary  ajrreenient — The  Armenians  claim  the  Tsar's  protec- 
tio!i--The  Eastern  Christians — A  fresh  attempt  to  reach  the  far  East — 
The  Madagascar  Expedition — The  natural  direction  and  limits  of  Russia's 
colonising  powers. 


The  victory  of  Poltava  shed  a  glory  on  Peter,  on  his 
army,  and  on  his  subjects,  which  extended  far  beyond 
the  great  Tsar's  reign,  and  even  be^-ond  the  eighteenth 
century  itself.  Yet  it  did  not  give  the  victor  the  reward 
which  he  may  be  reasonably  supposed  to  have  most  desired 
— peace.  Twelve  more  years — full  of  extreme  effort  and 
fresh  sacrifice  —  were  to  elapse  before  this  happy  result 
was  attained.  With  this  fact  Peter  himself,  his  intellectual 
deficiencies,  and  the  weaknesses  of  his  character,  had  much 
to  do.  At  the  moment  of  his  Poltava  victory,  his  natural 
and  logical  line  of  conduct  lay  clear  before  him,  and  his  per- 
sonal will  should  have  been  humbly  submitted  to  it.  In 
default  of  any  possible  agreement  with  the  conquered  foe, 
he  should  have  pursued  him,  strengthened  the  advantages 
already  gained,  completed  the  conquest  of  Livonia,  taken  up 
a  firm  footing  in  Finland,  and,  having  thus  secured  all  he 
could  hope  for  from  the  struggle,  he  should  never  have  given 
a  thought  to  anx'thing  else,  neither  to  the  Saxon  ally,  who 
had  deceived  him,  nor  the  Danish  all)',  who  had  been  the 
first  to  relinquish  the  conflict.  But  logic,  and  the  natural 
procession  of  things,  and  the  influence  of  surrounding  cir- 
cumstances, were  all  overwhelmed,  in  Peter's  case,  by  one 
of  those  instinctive  and  unreflecting  impulses  which  he  was 
so  incompetent  to  quell.  And  he  cast  himself,  without  any 
plausible  motive,  and  certainly  without  any  clear  and  well- 
thought-out  plan,  into  a  career  of  adventure,  and  a  wild  out- 
burst of  universal  expansion,  in  which  Russia,  at  that 
moment,  was  incapable  of  following  him,  and  in  which  his 
only  visible  guide  was  a  blind  and  thoughtless  need  of 
activity,  and  of  using,  and  abusing,  his  own  strength.  The 
Eastern  coast  of  the  Baltic  no  longer  sufficed  him  ;  he  must 
lay  hands  on  Mecklenburg.  He  claimed  the  right  to  lord  it 
over  Poland,  and  establish  order  in  that  country,  by  uphold- 


FROM  THE  BALTIC  TO  THE  CASPIAN  329 

ing  its  anarchical  constitution.  He  gave  a  foretaste  of  the 
Slavophil  and  Panslavist  policy  of  future  years,  attract- 
ing Servians  and  Montenegrins  beneath  the  shadow  of  his 
Protectorate,  and  sending  them  books  and  professors,  who 
would  have  been  far  better  employed  at  Moscow,  which 
lacked  both  schools,  and  money  to  keep  them  up.  He  ended 
by  risking  all  the  fruits  of  his  efforts  and  his  former  successes, 
on  the  banks  of  the  Pruth,  and  even  incurred  the  danger  of 
casting  his  own  fortunes,  and  those  of  his  people,  into  a  yet 
deeper  abyss  than  that  which  had  swallowed  up  Charles  XII. 
Hardly  had  he  escaped,  as  by  a  miracle,  from  this  catastrophe, 
before  he  began  afresh.  Without  any  necessity, — swayed  by 
the  mere  desire  of  attracting  attention,  making  a  figure  in 
Europe,  having  a  finger  in  everything,  and  being  associated 
with  every  one, — he  plunged  into  a  network  of  doubtful 
intrigues,  and  ambiguous  arrangements,  negotiating,  bar- 
gaining, meddling  in  all  directions,  running  the  risk,  once 
more,  of  being  swallowed  up  in  that  slough  which  for  ten 
long  years  he  trampled  hopelessly,  going  up  and  down, 
between  Berlin,  Copenhagen  and  Amsterdam, — struggling 
with  the  rival  ambitions  and  greed,  which  his  blunders  had 
roused. 

He  lacked  everything  necessary  to  enable  him  to  move, 
and  maintain  his  dignity,  on  the  huge  chess-board  whereon 
he  thus  ventured  to  expose  his  own  military  power,  and  his 
newly  Europeanised  diplomacy.  He  had  no  sufficient 
knowledge,  either  of  the  various  interests  with  which  he  had 
to  do,  or  of  the  general  routine  of  business,  and  he  possessed 
neither  tact  nor  moderation.  Everywhere,  at  almost  every 
step,  he  stumbled  against  some  obstacle.  He  was  caught  in 
traps,  and  blundered  into  dark  holes,  which  he  neither  per- 
ceived nor  knew  how  to  avoid.  He  was  astounded  that 
an  alliance  between  himself  and  the  Elector  of  Hanover 
should  be  unwelcome  to  that  sovereign  in  his  quality  as  King 
of  England,  and  wondered  that  Austria  was  offended,  when 
he  had  thought  to  .serve  German  interests,  by  helping  the 
King  of  Prussia  to  square  his  territory  at  the  expense  of  the 
King  of  Sweden.  He  celebrated  his  daughter's  wedding  at 
Dantzic,  in  order  to  please  his  Polish  friends,  levied  a  con- 
tribution of  150,000  crowns  on  the  town  for  the  occasion, 
and  betrayed  great  astonishment  when  the  cit}'  appeared  to 
care  more  for  the  money  he  had  taken,  than   for  the  honour 


330  PETER  THE  GREAT 

he  had  conferred.  He  interfered  in  the  quarrels  between 
the  Polish  Catholics  and  Uniates,  and  the  Orthodox 
Catholics,  and  all  he  gained  was  to  drive  the  Orthodox 
monks  themselves  into  flat  rebellion  against  his  Commis- 
sioner, Roudakovski,  whom  they  beat,  and  threw  into  prison, 
crying,  'Away  with  the  Muscovites  ! '  ^  At  the  very  moment 
when  he  was  pestering  Holland  with  requests  for  a  loan, 
Rear-Admiral  Cruys,  commanding  one  of  his  squadrons, 
burnt  five  Dutch  merchantmen  in  the  Port  of  Helsingfors, 
murdered  some  of  the  crews,  and  carried  off  the  rest.  An 
explanation  was  demanded,  and  he  declared  that  all  the 
blame  must  be  laid  on  the  Swedes,  who  held  Helsingfors, 
and  whose  artillery  was  so  heavy  that  the  Admiral  had  not 
dared  to  attack  them.  Wherefore,  not  choosing  to  retire 
without  having  performed  some  warlike  feat,  he  had  fallen 
on  the  Dutch  ships  !  - 

The  Tsar's  Ministers  and  Envoys  to  foreign  courts  were 
much  like  him, — either  obsequious  or  arrogant,  but  always 
in  extremes.  '1  he  journal  of  the  Danish  Resident,  in  1710, 
contains  this  passage :  '  Victory  has  so  completely  turned 
the  heads  of  the  people  here,  that  they  are  quite  beside 
themselves.  They  think  of  nothing  but  having  honour  paid 
to  them,  and  not  returning  it.'  ^  They,  too — most  of  them 
professional  adventurers,  drawn,  like  Menshikof  and  lagou- 
jinski,  from  the  stable  or  the  servants'  hall,  or  snatched,  like 
Kourakin,  from  the  delights  of  patriarchal  existence,  from 
the  habits  of  the  doniostroi  and  of  the  tcrem, — waded  hither 
and  thither  in  the  slough.  Their  blunders,  their  awkwardness, 
and  their  boorishness  were  never-ending.  In  one  place  they 
were  imprisoned  for  debt,  in  another  they  were  turned  out  of 
doors  like  ill-behaved  servants  ;  everywhere,  they  contrived 
to  complicate  the  business  of  wTiich  they  held  the  threads. 
The  whole  political  history  of  the  reign,  from  the  triumph 
of  Poltava  down  to  the  peace  of  Nystadt,  is  one  long  chaos 
and  confusion.  The  lucky  star  of  Russia,  the  heroic  patience 
of  the  nation,  and, — it  is  only  just  to  admit  it, — the  vigour 
and  i)erscverancc  of  the  Tsar,  carried  them  through  at  last, 
but  the  process  cost  very  dear,  and  brought  but  little  profit. 

1  Solovief,  vol.  xviii.  p.  86. 

'  Konrakin's  Memor.inda  to  the  St.-ites-Gener.il,  Aiifj.  7,  1713,  and  Jan.  31, 
1714;  He  Hie's  Despatch  to  Kagcl,  Oct.  14,  1713  ;  Dutch  Archives. 
»  State  Papers,  Copenhagen. 


FROM  THE  BALTIC  TO  THE  CASPIAN  331 

From  Kief,  whither  Peter  had  gone  from  Poltava,  he  pro- 
ceeded to  Poland,  where  the  nobles  of  the  country,  headed 
by  the  Hetman  Sieniawski,  welcomed  him  triumphantly,  as 
the  victorious  champion  of  Polish  liberty  !  In  October  he 
met  Augustus, — who  had  long  since  repented  him  of  his 
secession, — at  Thorn.  The  faithless  king  had  not  waited  for 
Charles's  final  defeat,  to  seek  a  reconciliation  with  his 
adversary.  After  a  very  undignified  freak,  during  which  he 
and  his  son  Maurice  appeared  under  the  walls  of  Lille  as 
mercenaries,  attached  to  a  body  of  9000  men,  hired  by  the 
allies  against  France,  he  had  thought  better  of  it ;  sent 
General  Goltz  to  St  Petersburg ;  induced  King  Frederick 
IV.  of  Denmark  to  visit  him  at  Dresden  ;  travelled  himself 
to  Berlin  ;  and  so,  by  the  beginning  of  July  1709,  found 
himself  once  more  possessed  of  three  allies.  His  defensive 
and  offensive  treaty  with  Russia,  against  Sweden,  secured 
him  the  Polish  throne,  and  a  decree  from  the  Pope  released 
him  from  the  obligations  contracted  at  Altranstadt,  including 
that  of  obedience  to  Leszczynski.^  Leszczynski  himself  had 
been  forced  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  Swedish  army,  and 
eventually  retired  into  Pomerania  with  Krassow's  troops. 

Thus  the  quadruple  coalition,  which  had  been  Patkul's 
dream,  took  shape  at  last.  It  had  gathered  together  to 
divide  the  spoil,  and  Peter  was  its  natural  head.  While  he 
was  at  Thorn,  Denmark  sent  him  an  envoy  extraordinary, 
Count  Rantzau,  with  proposals  of  direct  alliance.  This 
same  alliance  had  formerly  been  eagerly  solicited  by  the 
Tsar's  INIinister  at  Copenhagen,  Dolgorouki,  who  had  offered 
considerable  subsidies  to  obtain  it — 300,000  crowns  at  the 
outset,  100,000  every  following  year,  besides  materials  for  the 
fleet,  sailors,  and  other  advantages.  But  that  moment  was 
quite  gone  by.  The  friendship  of  Russia  had  risen  in  the 
European  market.  '  I  have  given  nothing,  not  a  man,  nor  a 
copper  coin,' writes  Dolgorouki,  in  October,  when  he  forwards 
the  announcement  that  the  treaty  is  signed.^ 

As  regards  military  operations  also,  Peter  was,  at  first, 
eminently  successful.  Riga,  which  he  besieged  in  person,  in 
the  month  of  November, — throwing  the  first  three  bombs 
with  his  own  hands, — did,  indeed,  hold  out.     But  the  follow- 

^  HeiTmann,   Geschichte  Russlands,   vol.    iv.    p.    2^7  ;    Boettiger,    Geschichte 
Saxens  (Hamburg,  1830),  vol.  ii.  p.  250. 
^  Solovief,  vol.  XV.  p.  391. 


332  PETER  THE  GREAT 

ing  year,  in  the  month  of  June,  Wibor<;  was  simultaneously 
attacked  by  sea  and  land, — the  Tsar  this  time  performing 
the  duties  of  rear-admiral, — and  was  forced  to  capitulate. 
In  Jul)',  Riga  surrendered,  at  last,  to  Shcremctief  One  after 
the  other,  Kexholin,  Pernau,,Arensberg,  and  Revel,  opened 
their  gates,  or  were  carried  by  assault.  Carelia,  Livonia, 
and  Esthonia  were  conquered,  and  Courland  voluntarily 
surrendered  to  the  victors, — the  reigning  duke,  Frederick 
WilHam,  suing  for  the  hand  of  one  of  the  Tsar's  nieces,  Anna 
Ivanovna. 

Rut  suddenly, alarming  news  came  from  the  south.  Charles's 
diplomacy'  in  Turkey,  armed  with  the  most  weighty  of  argu- 
ments, had  defeated  Tolstoi's.  After  Mazcppa's  dcatii,  the 
Swedish  king  had  grown  rich.  Voi'narowski  had  lent  him 
80,000  ducats,  drawn  from  the  well-filled  barrels  which  the 
Hetman  had  carried  with  him  in  his  flight.  100,000  crowns 
had  been  sent  to  him  from  Holstein  ;  he  had  raised  200,000 
more  by  a  loan  granted  by  the  Brothers  Cook,  of  the  British 
Levant  Company, and  400,000  came  from  the  Grand  Vizier  Nu- 
man  Kuprioli.  He  had  thus  been  able  to  strengthen  the  hands 
of  his  two  agents,  Poniatowski  and  Neugebauer.  This  last, 
a  turncoat,  a  former  tutor  of  the  Tsarevitch  Alexis,  had  been 
driven,  by  ill-treatment,  into  desertion.  The  Tsar's  Minister, 
who  claimed  the  surrender,  or  demanded,  at  all  events,  the 
arrest,  of  the  King  of  Sweden,  could  only  lay  his  hand  on 
20,000  ducats  and  a  few  sable  furs,  wherewith  to  tempt  the 
Turkish  Mufti !  Tolstoi  ventured,  at  last,  to  deliver  an  ulti- 
matum, and  on  the  20th  November  17 10,  at  a  solemn  meet- 
ing of  the  Divan,  war  was  formally  declared,  and  the  Russian 
Minister  was  imprisoned  in  the  Seven  Towers. 

To  Peter, — absorbed  with  his  great  political  combinations 
in  Central  Europe, — this  blow  was  uttcrK'  unexpected,  and 
he  was  ill-prepared  to  meet  it.  The  allies  he  had  secured 
could  be  of  no  service  to  him.  The  Danes  had  been  already 
disabled  by  a  complete  defeat,  which  had  cost  them  6000 
men  (February,  17 10),  and  England  had  taken  advantage  of 
this  fact,  to  renew  her  previous  attempts  to  bring  about  an 
agreement  between  Denmark  and  Sweden.  Peter  had  no 
Minister  in  London  at  that  moment,  for  I\Litvicicf  had  been 
driven  away  by  his  creditors,  after  a  most  discreditable  dis- 
turbance, in  July  1708.  Prince  Kourakin  had  indeed 
succeeded,  in  the  spring  of  17 10,  in   making  arrangements 


FROM  THE  BALTIC  TO  THE  CASPIAN  333 

for  a  defensive  alliance  with  the  Elector  Geori^e  Louis  of 
Hanover,  but  this  treaty,  by  which  the  Tsar  bound  himself 
not  to  attack  the  Swedes  in  Germany,  unless  they  attacked 
his  allies,  was  looked  on  as  treason  of  a  kind.^  The  Polish 
subjects  of  Augustus  were  no  better  pleased  with  their  king's 
new  understanding  with  the  Tsar,  and,  early  in  171 1,  Wollo- 
wicz  appeared  at  Moscow,  to  complain  of  the  exactions  and 
the  violence  inflicted  by  the  Russian  armies  on  the  Poles.  He 
demanded,  in  their  name,  the  immediate  evacuation  of  the 
country,  by  the  Tsar's  troops  ;  the  payment  of  an  indemnity 
for  the  excesses  committed  ;  and  the  restitution  of  Livonia, 
and  of  all  the  Polish  territories  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
Dnieper,  both  in  the  Ukraine  and  in  Lithuania.^ 

All  this  constituted  a  perilous  state  of  things,  and  on 
this  most  threatening  horizon,  to  the  north  and  west  of 
Europe,  the  Tsar  was  forced  to  turn  his  back,  when  he 
faced  southwards.  Slow  as  he  was  to  foresee  events,  Peter 
realised  them  very  clearly  when  they  were  close  upon  him, 
and  once  again,  under  these  dark  clouds,  his  soul  was  dark- 
ened, and  his  mind  distressed.  Before  leaving  St  Petersburg, 
in  April  171 1,  he  took  measures  to  ensure  the  future  of 
Catherine  and  the  children  she  had  borne  him,  and  when 
Apraxin,  who  was  on  the  Don,  wrote  for  instructions,  he 
replied  (24th  April  171 1)  that  'ill  and  despairing  as  he  was, 
he  had  no  orders  to  give  him.'^  In  this  frame  of  mind  he 
entered  on  his  Moldavian  campaign,  where  he  was  to  learn, 
in  his  turn,  what  is  entailed  by  offensive  warfare,  carried  on 
in  an  unknown  country,  with  insufficient  resources,  and 
against  an  enemy  whose  strength  has  been  undervalued. 


II 

The  Tsar's  plan  of  campaign,  on  this  occasion,  seems  to 
have  been  entirely  of  his  own  conception.  Its  chief  flaw  is 
evidently  clear  even  to  a  non-professional  observer.  The 
great  man's  predecessors  did  wisely,  when,  after  having 
undertaken  to  make  common  cause  with  the  Poles  and 
the  Imperial  forces  against  the  Turks,  they  invariably 
concentrated  their  attentioti  on  the  Tartars.     The  Khanate 

^  Solovief,  vol.  xvi.  p.  62. 

'  Moscow  State  Papers,  Poland,  171 1. 

'  .Solovief,  vol.  xvi.  p.  71. 


334  PETER  THE  GREAT 

of  the  Crimea, — the  last  remnant,  and  a  formidable  one,  of 
the  mighty  Mongol  power, — then  constituted  the  advanced 
guard  of  the  Ottoman  army.  It  was  so  placed  as  to  bar  all 
access  to  Constantinople,  eastward.  Firmly  established,  and 
half  hidden,  as  it  were,  in  its  natural  fortress  of  Pcrckop,  it 
was  certain  to  take  any  invader,  who  attempted  to  move 
through  the  Danubian  provinces,  by  the  western  road,  in 
the  rear,  cutting  all  communications,  and  removing  all 
possibility  of  retreat.  The  realisation  of  this  fact  accounts 
for  the  great  Catherine's  desperate  efforts  to  destroy  the 
Khanate,  and  that  Peter  himself  understood  it  is  proved  by 
the  circumstance  that  his  original  attack  on  Turkey  was 
made  by  way  of  Azof,  whence  he  could  alwa}'s  retreat  up 
the  river.  But  a  fresh  attack  on  Azof  was  impossible  with- 
out a  fleet,  and  the  fleet  which  had  been  built  for  this  object 
at  Voroneje  was  useless,  for  the  water  was  so  shallow  that 
it  could  not  be  moved.  Peter  therefore  marched  by  lassy, 
reckoning  on  the  Hospodars  of  Moldavia  and  Wallachia, 
Kantcmir  and  Brancovan,  and  on  the  resources  of  their 
provinces,  just  as  Charles  had  counted  on  those  of  Mazeppa 
and  the  Ukraine.  He  had  an  army  of  45,000  men,  and  a 
huge  camp -following,  with  numberless  useless  mouths. 
Catherine  accompanied  him,  with  a  numerous  suite  of 
ladies,  and  most  of  his  officers,  especially  the  foreigners, 
had  brought  their  wives  and  children  with  them.  There 
were  to  be  daily  gatherings  of  these  ladies  about  the 
future  Tsarina,  in  which  the  cares  of  war  were  to  be  swiftly 
forgotten.^ 

But  they  were  not  forgotten  for  long.  Kantemir  received 
his  guests  with  open  arms,  but  he  had  no  food  to  give  them. 
])rancovan  began  by  hesitating,  and  ended  by  siding  with 
the  Turks.  'Ihe  stores  of  provisions  which  Peter  had 
ordered  to  be  collected,  had  been  overlooked  in  the  haste 
of  departure,  and  there  was  no  chance,  now,  of  repairing  the 
error,  for  the  Tartars  had  appeared  on  the  Russian  rear,  and 
all  communication  with  the  north  was  completely  cut.  The 
Tsar  learnt  that  the  Turks  had  formed  a  depot  of  su[)plics  at 
Braila  on  the  Scret,  and,  more  concerned  already  about  feed- 
ing his  troops,  than  giving  battle,  he  detached  General  Ronne 
and  a  corps  of  cavalry,  with  orders  to  seize  it,  and  meet  him 
on  the  banks  of  the  Pruth,  the  course  of  which  river  he  him- 

^  Brasey  de  Lyon's  Memoirs  (Amstcrd.Tm,  1716),  vol.  i.  p.  33. 


FROM  THE  BALTIC  TO  THE  CASPIAN  335 

self  was  to  follow  in  the  same  direction.  But  another  en- 
counter awaited  him :  an  unavoidable  meeting  this,  foreseen 
by  every  one  but  himself, — for  his  staff  is  said  to  have  realised, 
and  warned  him,  of  its  likelihood.  On  the  evening  of  the 
7th  (iSth)  of  July  171 1,  his  army,  reduced  by  Ronne's  de- 
parture to  about  38,000  men,  was  surrounded  by  the  Turks 
and  Tartars,  whose  troops,  five  or  six  times  as  numerous  as 
Peter's,  held  the  two  banks  of  the  river,  while  a  strong  force 
of  artillery  guarded  the  neighbouring  heights.  No  retreat 
was  possible.  The  only  apparent  issue  was  captivity,  or 
death. 

According  to  one  writer,  Peter's  first  thought,  on  this  occa- 
sion again,  was  to  save  his  own  person,  and  he  summoned  a 
Cossack,  Ivan  Nekulcze,  who,  so  he  thought,  might  be  able 
to  pass  him,  with  Catherine,  through  the  enemy's  lines.^ 
Others, — and  these,  though  contradicted  in  more  than  one 
particular,  are  numerous,  and  in  complete  agreement, — de- 
scribe him  as  having  given  way  to  despair,  and  utter  moral 
prostration.  He  shut  himself  up  in  his  tent,  refused  to  give 
any  order,  or  listen  to  any  advice,  and  left  Catherine  to  make 
a  final  effort  for  the  common  weal.^  The  famous  letter  which 
the  sovereign  is  said  to  have  addressed,  at  this  tragic  moment, 
to  the  Senate,  is  doubtless  known  to  many  of  my  readers  : 
'  I  give  you  notice,  that  without  any  fault  on  our  part,  and 
simply  in  consequence  of  the  false  information  supplied  to 
us,  I  have  been  hemmed  in,  with  my  whole  army,  by  a 
Turkish  army  seven  times  as  strong  as  our  own, — so  that  all 
means  of  bringing  up  supplies  are  cut  off,  and  that  unless 
God  bestows  some  special  help  upon  us,  I  can  foresee  no- 
thing but  a  complete  defeat,  or  that  I  shall  fall  into  the  hands 
of  the  Turks.  If  this  last  should  happen,  you  are  not  to 
consider  me  as  your  Tsar  and  Master,  nor  to  execute  any 
commands  I  may  give  you,  even  written  with  my  own  hand, 
so  long  as  I  am  not  amongst  you  in  person.  But  if  I  should 
perish,  and  you  should  receive  certain  news  of  my  death,  you 
will  choose  one  of  your  own  number,  more  worthy  than  my- 
self, to  succeed  me.'     Although  this  document  was,  at  a  later 

'  Kotchoubinski,  Selections  from  the  Aloldo-lVallachian  Archives,  p.  64. 

^  Coxe's  Travels,  vol.  i.  p.  499;  Rrucc's  Metnoirs,  p.  44;  Rousset's 
(Nestesouranoy)  Memoirs,  vol.  iii.  p.  161  ;  Zinkeisen,  Geschichte  des  Osman- 
ischen  Keichs,  vol.  v.  p.  424  ;  La  Motraye,  Voyages,  vol.  ii.  p.  19 ;  Marais, 
Journal,  vol.  iii.  p.  157.  Marais  refers  to  the  Cki-ouiqiie  Contemporaine.  See 
also  Baron  Korffs  letter  in  the  Bulletin  du  Bibliophile,  Jan.  15,  1S61. 


336  PETER  THE  GREAT 

period,  placed  amonij^st  the  ofilcial  records,  its  authenticity 
is  more  than  doubtful.^  The  ori<^inal  is  not  in  existence. 
How  can  it  have  disappeared  ?  The  first  known  edition  of 
the  text  is  to  be  found  in  Staehlin's  anecdotes,  and  he 
quotes  it  as  having  been  verbally  given  him  by  Shcre- 
mctief  It  is  well  known  that  the  'Collected  Laws' 
{Po/?ioic  Sobranit'  Znkonov,  iv.,  712),  which  include  this 
letter,  were  drawn  up  from  information  obtained  from 
the  same  source.  The  style  is  Peter's  style,  and  so  too 
is  the  radical  fashion  in  which  he  solves  the  numerous 
questions  his  captivity,  or  death,  might  be  expected  to 
raise.  But  how  are  we  to  account  for  his  forgetfulness  of  his 
natural  heir,  at  a  period  when  his  quarrel  with  Alexis  was  so 
far  from  being  complete,  that  he  was  looking  about  for  a  wife 
for  him,  so  as  to  secure  the  succession  to  the  throne?  How 
are  we  to  account  for  the  choice  of  a  person  '  more  worthy 
than  himself  from  the  Senatorial  ranks,  to  which  the  Tsar's 
favourite  collaborators,  Apraxin,  Golovkin,  and  Menshikof, 
did  not  belong?  Not  to  speak  of  other  points  of  im[)roba- 
bility,  as,  for  instance,  that  in  several  other  letters,  written 
in  the  course  of  the  next  few  days,  and  the  authenticity  of 
which  is  undeniable,  Peter  makes  no  reference  to  this  all- 
important  communication,  while,  in  one  of  them,  he  frankly 
refers  to  the  faults  which  have  placed  him  and  his  army  in 
such  desperate  straits.'^ 

As  to  Catherine's  supposed  share  in  these  events,  we  are 
forced  to  choose  between  Peter's  own  testimony,  which  is  not 
altogether  reliable,  and  that  of  certain  secondary  actors  in 
the  drama.  Most  of  these  do  not  seem  to  be  aware  of  her 
having  played  any  active  part.  Poniatowski  merely  says 
that  Peter  ventured  to  send  a  flag  of  truce  to  the  Turkish 
camp.'*  lirasey  de  Lyon,  who  was  serving  as  a  brigadier  in  the 
Russian  army,  and  whose  wife,  who  was  much  appreciated 
and  admired  in  the  Tsar's  circle,  was,  according  to  Weber, 
at  that  time  very  intimate  with  the  future  Tsarina,  gives  the 
following  details, — '  His  Majesty,  General  Janus,  Lieutenant 
General  liaron  Von  Osten,  and  the  Field-Marshal  (Shereme- 

'  See  Bielof's  paper  in  Russia,  Old  and  New  (1S76)  vol.  iii.  p.  404  ;  Solovief, 
vol.  xvi.  p.  89,  etc.,  argues  on  both  sides,  but  docs  not  come  to  any  decision. 

"•^  Oustrialofs  paper  in  the  Anmtal  of  the  Acndnnie  des  Sciences,  1859;  Wit- 
berg's  paper  in  Russia,  OH  and  New  (1875),  vol.  iii.  p.  256,  etc. 

*  Report  addressed  to  Leszczynski.  French  Foreign  Office,  Me  moires  et 
Documents  (Kus  ia),  vol.  ii.  p.  121. 


FROM  THE  BALTIC  TO  THE  CASPIAN  337 

ticf),  had  a  long  secret  conference.  They  gathered  round 
General  Von  Hallart,  who  was  obliged  to  remain  in  his 
coach  on  account  of  his  wounds,  and  there — between  the 
General's  carriage  and  that  of  the  Baroness  Von  Osten,  in 
which  the  wife  of  Major-General  Bouche  was  seated — it  was 
arranged  that  the  Field-Marshal  should  write  a  letter  to  the 
Grand  Vizier,  and  ask  for  a  truce.' ^  Hallart's  journal,  which 
is  confirmed  by  that  of  the  Danish  minister,  Juel,  who  had 
the  story  from  the  General's  own  lips,  is  explicit  in  the  same 
sense.-  According  to  Juel,  there  was  no  truth  even  i.i  the 
story  that  Catherine  had  stripped  herself  of  her  jewels,  in 
order  to  increase  the  bribe  offered  to  the  Grand  Vizier.  All 
she  did  was  to  distribute  them  amongst  the  officers  of  the 
Guard,  with  the  idea  of  placing  them  in  safety,  and  they 
were  ultimately  returned  to  her. 

Somehow  or  other,  the  catastrophe  was  averted.  The 
Vizier,  after  sending  back  the  first  flag  of  truce  without 
an  answer,  finally  agreed  to  treat,  and  Shafirof  was  sent  by 
the  Tsar,  to  propose  conditions  quite  in  keeping  with  the 
respective  positions  of  the  two  armies,  viz. : — The  surrender 
of  all  the  strong  places  taken  from  Turkey  in  preceding  wars, 
the  restitution  of  Livonia,  and  even  of  the  other  coast  terri- 
tories, except  Ingria  and  St  Petersburg,  to  Sweden  ;  (Peter 
was  willing,  if  that  was  necessary,  to  give  Pskof,  and  even 
other  towns  in  the  very  heart  of  Russia,  for  the  sake  of  keep- 
ing St  Petersburg),  the  re-establishment  of  Leszczynski ;  a 
war  indemnity,  and  gifts  to  the  Sultan.  He  returned  bring- 
ing peace,  and  at  an  almost  infinitesimal  price.  Azof  was  to 
be  evacuated  :  some  small  fortresses  in  the  neighbourhood 
were  to  be  razed  :  Peter  was  to  engage  not  to  meddle  more 
in  Polish  affairs,  and  the  King  of  Sweden  was  to  be  granted 
a  free  return  to  his  own  country.  According  to  Hammer, 
who  has  consulted  the  Turkish  records,  the  backsheesh  re- 
ceived on  this  occasion,  by  the  Vizier,  and  divided  by  him 
with  the  Kiaia,  did  not  exceed  the  sum  of  200,000  roubles.^ 
The  German  historian  accepts  the  story  of  Catherine's  inter- 
vention, and  of  the  effect  produced  by  her  diamonds  ;  for  a 
ring  which  had  belonged  to  the  future  Tsarina  was  found,  in 
later   years,   amongst   the   belongings   of  the    Kiaia :     But 

*  Afemoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  79,  etc. 

*  Juel's  Travels  (Copenhagen,  1893)  p.  422. 

'  Geschichte  des  Osmanisdien  Reichs  (Pcblh,  1S28)  vol.  vii.  p.  157. 


338  PETER  THE  GREAT 

surely  the  Vizier  and  the  Kiaia  m\<j;ht  have  taken  everything, 
—  the  persons  of  Peter  and  his  wife,  and  his  whole  army  ! 

The  explanation  of  this  event  must  be  sought  in  the 
general  history  of  Turkish  warfare.  The  Ottomans  always 
betrayed  great  eagerness  to  return  to  their  own  country, 
and  gladly  accepted  a  trifling  advantage,  so  as  to  escape  the 
necessity  of  further  effort.  Their  best  troops,  and  the  Janis- 
saries in  particular,  were  capricious  and  undisciplined.  In 
the  circumstances  we  are  now  considering,  they  probably 
thought  that  the  victor  of  Poltava  would  sell  his  life  and 
liberty  very  dearly,  and  Shafirofs  attitude  and  language  would 
confirm  that  conviction.  Russia  was  an  adept  in  the  tradi- 
tional arts  of  deception,  which  had  originated  in  Byzantium, 
and  which  a  long  apprenticeship  to  misfortune  had  taught  her 
to  develop.  The  Turkish  troops,  caring  little,  at  that  moment, 
for  any  more  complete  triumph  than  the  easy  one  lying 
within  their  grasp,  and  utterly  indifferent  to  the  fate  either  of 
Leszczynski  or  of  Charles  xil.,  showed  small  inclination  for 
fighting.  The  Vizier,  knowing  what  it  would  cost  him  to 
disoblige  them,  bowed  to  their  will,  and  peace  was  signed.^ 

On  this,  as  on  every  other  occasion,  Peter  recovered  from 
his  past  terrors,  and  took  fresh  heart  for  the  future,  with 
the  most  extraordinary  swiftness.  Writing  to  Apraxin,  that 
very  day,  he  does  indeed  acknowledge  that  he  had  never 
been  in  such  a  distressing  position,  '  since  he  had  begun  to 
serve,'  but  he  hastens  to  add  that  '  the  losses  we  have  en- 
dured on  one  hand  will  serve  to  strengthen  the  matchless 
acquisitions  we  have  preserved  elsewhere ! '  At  the  same 
time,  he  took  good  care  not  to  relinquish  any  oppor- 
tunity, dishonest  or  not,  which  offered,  to  counterbalance  the 
severity  of  fortune.  When  he  gives  orders  to  raze  the  forti- 
fications of  Taganrog,  he  insists  that  the  foundations  should 
not  be  touched,  'as  circumstances  may  change,' and  he  re- 
fuses to  hear  of  surrendering  Azof,  or  evacuating  Poland 
before  Charles  XII.  has  left  Turkey.  In  vain  it  was  pointed 
out  to  him  that  the  Porte  was  under  no  obligation  as  to  this 
last  point  !  Shafirof,  and  young  Shcremctief,  whom  he  had 
sent  to  Constantinople  as  hostages,  went  in  peril  of  their 
lives  ;  but  the  Tsar  cared  not  a  jot,  and  in  October  17 12,  he 
allowed  them  to  be  imprisoned  in  the  Seven  Towers,  with 
Tolstoi'  himself.     He  did  not  give  in,  and  then  only  partly, 

'  Solovief,  vol.  xvi.  p.  104. 


FROM  THE  BALTIC  TO  THE  CASPIAN  339 

until  the  Turks  directly  threatened  a  renewal  of  hostilities. 
He  then  surrendered  Azof,  and  consented  to  a  fresh  rectifi- 
cation of  the  frontier,  demanded  by  the  Porte.  But  he 
continued  to  deceive  it  by  false  reports  as  to  the  number  of 
troops  he  had  kept  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Warsaw,  and 
finally,  he  gained  the  point  he  had  most  at  heart. 

Wlien  Charles,  after  that  wild  and  legendary  freak  of  his, 
[que  Ton  soitj  refused  to  depart  from  Bender,  he  was  seized 
and  imprisoned  in  the  Castle  of  Timourtach,  a  property 
of  the  Sultan's,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Demotica.  His 
adventure  had  cost  the  heroic  warrior  four  fingers,  the  tip  of 
his  ear,  the  end  of  his  nose,  and  all  possibility  of  stirring 
up  warlike  feeling  in  Turkey. 

Ill 

Peter  now  believed  himself  to  be  in  a  position  which  would 
enable  him  to  bring  the  war  with  Sweden  to  a  speedy  close. 
The  exhausted  condition  of  his  country,  and  the  disorder 
reigning  in  his  own  finances,  imperiously  called  for  such  a 
step.  But  he  had  reckoned  without  the  allies  he  himself 
had  chosen.  The  Siege  of  Stralsund,  undertaken  in  common 
with  them,  in  September  1712,  brought  forth  nothing  but 
European  indignation.  Russians,  Danes  and  Saxons  spent 
their  whole  time  quarrelling  amongst  themselves,  and 
devastating  the  neighbouring  country.  The  War  of  the 
Spanish  Succession  was  drawing  to  a  close,  and  there  was 
reason  to  fear  that  Great  Britain,  Holland  and  Austria  might 
intervene  in  the  North.  Peter  sent  Prince  Kourakin  to  the 
Hague,  with  orders  to  ask  a  guarantee  for  his  Swedish  con- 
quests, in  return  for  his  assistance  against  France.  The 
Ambassador  was  coldly  received.  '1  he  conduct  of  the 
allies  in  Pomerania  had  not  been  of  a  nature  to  tempt  other 
countries  to  make  common  cause  with  them.  The  year 
closed  with  a  complete  defeat  of  the  Saxo-Danish  army, 
which  had  followed  Stenbock's  troops, —  the  only  Swedish 
corps  still  able  to  keep  the  field, — into  Mecklenburg. 

The  following  j-ear  was  no  more  prosperous.  Peter, 
noticing  the  disposition  of  France  and  England  to  draw 
together,  at  the  Congress  of  Utrecht,  went  into  Hanover,  to 
win  over  the  Elector  to  his  own  interests,  but  got  nothmg 
but  fair  words.     He  fell  back  on   Prussia,  where  the  King, 


340  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Frederick  I.,  had  lately  died.  Prussia,  up  to  this  point,  had 
worked  on  a  s)-stem  which  may  be  summed  up  in  the  follow- 
ing^ manner:  she  never  did  anythint^.  of  any  sort,  without 
tr\in<;  to  i^ain  somcthint:^,  however  small  ;  she  left  others  to 
fight,  and  took  advantage  of  the  confusion  to  snatch  some 
part  of  the  booty.  Thus,  when  Elbing  was  offered  her, 
she  gave  nothing  in  exchange,  beyond  the  vaguest  promises. 
Her  ultimate  object  was  no  less  than  an  anticipation  of  the 
great  Frederick's  work — the  immediate  partition  of  Poland.^ 
Peter's  visit  to  the  new  king,  Frederick  William,  soon  con- 
vinced him  that  the  change  of  ruler  had  by  no  means 
modified  the  national  policy. 

He  returned  to  St.  Petersburg  in  March  1713,  and  resolved 
to  strike  a  great  blow  with  his  own  hand.  He  would  attack 
Finland,  which  he  called  'the  nursing  mother '  of  Sweden.^ 
The  event  proved  that  he  always  succeeded  best  when  he 
did  his  own  work.  The  chief  town  of  the  country,  Abo, 
opened  its  gates,  almost  without  resistance,  in  August.  In 
October,  Apraxin  and  Michael  Galitzin  defeated  the 
Swedes  at  Tammerfors.  But  in  Germany,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  campaign  of  17 13  brought  no  good  fortune  to 
any  one  but  Prussia ;  and  Prussia's  greed  was  the  only 
force  she  expended  in  it.  Stenbock,  who  had  been  shut  up 
in  Tonningen,  was  forced  to  capitulate  to  Mcnshikof  and 
the  allies,  on  the  4th  of  May,  and  the  surrender  of  Stettin 
soon  followed.  But  the  victors  fell  to  quarrelling  over  the 
spoils,  Prussia,  who  had  refused  to  send  artillery  to  help 
the  besiegers  to  take  the  town,  generously  agreed  to  reconcile 
them  by  {placing  a  Pru.ssian  garrison  in  the  fortress,  and  the 
Treaty  of  Sequestration,  which  brought  this  windfall  to 
Frederick  William,  included  Rligen,  Stralsund,  Wismar  and 
the  whole  of  Pomerania  !  The  king,  in  return,  was  good 
enough  to  declare  himself  ready  to  'shed  his  blood  for  the 
Tsar  and  his  heirs  !  '^ 

Denmark,  ill -pleased  with  this  compensation,  protested 
loudly,  claimed  to  be  j^rotected  against  the  ambition  of 
Prussia,  Russia,  and  Ilolstein,  and  proved  her  ill-temper  by 
refusing  to  take  part  in  an  arrangement  with  Hanover, 
according  to  which    I'ctcr  had   hoped, — when   Oueen  Anne 

^  Droysen,  GeschichU  dcs  Pieussischen  Politik,  Part  IV.  .Sect.  i.  \>.  340. 
"  Lclicr  to  A|jiaxin,  (Jet.  30,  1712.     Cabinet  Papers,  Sect.  i.  14. 
^  SoloviiT,  Vdl.  xvii.  p.  24. 


FROM  THE  BALTIC  TO  THE  CASPIAN  341 

was  dead,  and  the  Elector  George  had  succeeded  to  the 
British  throne, — to  have  secured  the  support  of  the  latter 
Power. 

During.  17 14,  the  Tsar  made  war  alone,  both  by  sea  and 
land,  and  fortune  continued  to  smile  upon  him.  After  the 
taking  of  Neuschlot,  which  completed  the  conquest  of  Fin- 
land, he  personally  defeated  the  Swedish  fleet,  between 
flelsingfors  and  Abo,  on  the  25th  of  July,  took  Rear- 
Admiral  Erenskold  prisoner,  seized  on  the  island  of  Aland, 
and  returning  to  his  'Paradise'  in  full  triumphal  progress, 
was  rewarded  by  the  grade  of  Vice-Admiral,  duly  conferred 
on  him  by  the  Senate. 

But  in  the  month  of  November,  Charles  Xll.  unexpectedly 
appeared  at  Stralsund.  Here  he  was  joined  by  the  Admini- 
strator of  Lubeck,  who  ruled  the  Duchy  of  Holstein,  during 
the  minority  of  Duke  Charles  Frederick.  This  prince,  who 
was  Charles  XII.'s  sister's  son,  was  accepted,  at  that  time, 
as  presumptive  heir  to  the  crown  of  Sweden,  l^ut  the 
Danes  had  taken  possession  of  his  Holstein  inheritance,  and 
gave  no  sign  of  yielding  it  up.  Charles  Xll.  was  the  only 
person  who  seemed  likely  to  force  them  to  do  so.  His 
sudden  appearance  at  Stralsund  was  a  fresh  complication 
in  the  long-drawn-out  and  seemingly  interminable  Northern 
crisis.  In  the  company  of  the  Administrator  came  his 
Minister,  who  soon  became  the  Swedish  hero's  counsellor 
and  favourite.  The  how  and  why  of  this  is  not  easy  to 
explain, — for  the  man  himself  was  far  from  attractive.  His 
exterior  appearance  was  gloomy  and  threatening,  and  he  was 
generally  believed  to  be  guilty,  or  capable  at  all  events,  of  the 
most  abominable  crimes.  When,  just  a  little  later,  we  shall 
find  him  mixed  up  in  the  great  negotiations  which  were  to 
bring  peace  to  F^urope,  we  shall  hear  the  French  Minister  at 
the  Hague,  Chateauneuf,  bewailing  the  fact  that  he  is  forced 
to  treat  with  a  man  '  whose  loyalty  may  be  more  than 
fairly  suspected.'  Stanhope  declared  he  was  '  a  rascal,'  and 
openly  accused  him  of  having  sold  himself  to  the  Emperor. 
The  Baron  Von  Goertz,  disliked  and  suspected  by  every  one 
about  him,  roused  distrust  and  alarm  wherever  he  went. 

Early  in  1715,  the  affairs  of  the  allied  Powers  seemed,  for 
a  moment,  to  be  taking  a  favourable  turn.  Denmark  agreed 
to  make  over  Bremen  and  Verden  to  Hanover,  and  King 
George,  seeing  that  Prussia  was  inclined  to  accept  the  media- 


342  PETER  THE  GREAT 

tion  of  France  between  herself  and  Sweden,  had  been  induced 
(as  Elector  of  Hanover)  to  declare  war  against  the  Swedes. 
But  soon  fresh  complications  arose,  and  everything  went 
wrong.  Denmark  claimed  the  co-operation  of  the  English 
fleet,  which  the  Elector  neither  could  nor  would  promise,  and, 
as  the  English  vessels  stayed  in  port,  the  Danish  army  re- 
mained in  quarters.  In  May,  Prussia  joined  the  all'ance,  with 
the  sole  object  of  laying  hands  on  Stralsund,  from  which 
place  Charles  XII.  slipped  away  before  the  capitulation,  on 
the  1 2th  of  September.  Peter,  who  had  been  detained  in 
Poland,  and  had  not  taken  part  in  the  siege,  was  sorely 
displeased.  He  endeavoured  to  retrieve  matters  by  settling 
his  niece,  Catherine  Ivanovna,  in  Germany.  He  married 
her  to  Charles  Leopold,  Duke  of  Mecklenburg,  promising,  as 
her  dowr)',  the  Mecklenburg  towns  of  Wismar  and  Warne- 
mlinde,  which  he  proposed  to  take  from  the  Swedes. 
Wismar  did  indeed  capitulate  to  the  allies  in  April  1716. 
But  they  refused  to  allow  Repnine,  who  commanded  the 
Russian  troops,  to  take  possession  of  the  town  ;  yet  once 
again,  Peter  had  worked  for  the  benefit  of  the  Prussian 
King! 

In  the  course  of  the  following  summer,  his  vanity  was 
salved  in  a  very  flattering  manner.  In  the  month  of 
August,  and  from  the  deck  of  a  ship  of  his  own  building,  the 
* Ingcrnianland'  he  revieu'ed  the  Russian,  Danish,  Dutcli  and 
English  squadrons  lying  in  the  roads  of  Copenhagen,  under 
his  own  command.  The  appearance  of  England  and  Holland 
on  this  occasion  was  purely  formal,  but  an  agreement  had 
been  come  to  for  common  action  in  Scania  by  the  Russian 
and  Danish  fleets,  and  the  mere  presence  of  the  two 
other  squadrons,  as  a  matter  of  demonstration,  was  valu- 
able in  the  sense  of  its  giving  a  powerful  moral  support  to 
the  allies.  The  imderstanding  fell  through,  unfortunately, 
just  at  the  very  moment  when  active  co-operation  became 
necessary.  Suspicions  rose  on  both  sides,  and  there  were 
mutual  accusations  of  designs  far  removed  from  the  pro- 
jected enterprise.  In  vain  did  Peter  lavish  activity  and 
energy, — hurrying  to  Stralsund,  to  hasten  the  arrival  of  the 
Danish  transports,  which  were  lacking,  and  venturing  on  the 
most  dangerous  reconnoitring  expeditions,  under  the  fire  of 
the  hostile  batteries.  A  shot  actually  passed  through  his 
boat,  the  Princess.     But  the  month  of  September  came,  and 


FROM  THE  BALTIC  TO  THE  CASPIAN  343 

no  advance  had  been  made.  Then  the  Russian  staff  unani- 
mously declared  the  expedition  should  be  put  off,  till 
the  following  year.  A  general  outcry  immediately  arose 
amongst  the  allies.  Peter,  they  declared,  had  cast  aside  the 
mask, — he  had  agreed  with  the  Swedes  on  the  division  of 
Pomerania  and  of  Mecklenburg, — he  had  come  from  Ger- 
many on  purpose, — he  might  even  have  designs  on  Copen- 
hagen !  The  Danish  capital  was  forthwith  placed  in  a  state 
of  defence,  and  arms  were  distributed  to  all  the  burghers. 
Hanover, — which  had  looked  with  such  a  jealous  eye  on  the 
establishment  of  a  Russian  Princess  on  German  ground,  as 
to  offer  the  Tsar  the  friendship  of  England,  and  the  active 
co-operation  of  the  English  fleet,  in  return  for  his  renuncia- 
tion of  the  Mecklenburg  marriage, — was  the  bitterest  of  all. 
King  George,  we  are  told,  went  so  far  as  to  give  Admiral 
Norris,  who  commanded  his  ships  in  Danish  waters,  orders 
to  seize  the  person  of  the  Russian  sovereign,  and  sink  his 
squadron.^  Stanhope,  to  whom  the  message  was  confided, 
gave  the  angry  king  time  to  cool  down,  under  pretext  of 
the  necessity  of  referring  it  to  his  Ministerial  colleagues.  But 
Peter  was  disgusted  with  all  his  allies.  He  ordered  his 
troops  to  evacuate  Denmark,  and  retire  to  Rostock.  Shere- 
metief  established  himself  in  Mecklenburg,  with  the  bulk  of 
the  Russian  army,  and  the  Tsar  betook  himself  to  Amster- 
dam, attracted  thither  by  Goertz,  and  by  the  fresh  horizons 
he  unfolded  before  his  gaze. 

IV 

Baron  Von  Goertz  had  been  the  Duke  of  Holstein's 
Minister  before  he  had  served  Charles  XII.,  and  had  endea- 
voured to  save  his  first  master's  interests,  at  a  moment  when 
these  seemed  likely  to  be  engulfed  in  the  misfortunes  of  the 
Swedish  king.  He  had  entered  into  negotiations  with  Russia, 
Prussia,  and  the  King  of  Poland,  to  gain  some  share  of  the 
spoils  snatched  from  the  vanquished  warrior, — and  with  the 
Tsar,  to  obtain  the  Duke  of  flolstcin's  marriage  with  a 
Russian  princess,  and  his  subsequent  accession  to  the  throne 
of  Sweden.  Thus  he  had  betrayed  his  future  master  before- 
hand,  and    gained    nothing,   beyond    the    worst    diplomatic 

*  Mahon's   History  of  Ens^land,   vol.    i.    p.    338 ;    Droyscn,    Gachiclite  des 
Preussischen  Politik,  p.  174  ;  Solovicf,  vol.  xvii.  p.  64. 
23 


344  TETER  THE  GREAT 

reputation  in  Europe.  Yet  he  was  perfectly  sincere,  when, 
after  the  allies  had  curtly  dismissed  him,  and  the  Danes  had 
occupied  Holstein  without  a  shade  of  opposition,  he  turned 
his  eyes  on  the  Swedish  hero,  then  just  returned  from 
Turke)'.  He  had  conceived  a  fresh  plan, — that  of  finding 
Holstein's  salvation  in  the  triumph  of  Charles  XI I.,  and 
with  this  object,  he  desired  to  lessen  the  number  of  Sweden's 
enemies,  to  isolate  Denmark,  to  get  George  of  Hanover  into 
difficulties  with  the  Pretender,  and  then  to  treat  directly 
with  the  Tsar,  or  even,  if  that  were  possible,  with  IVussia, 
through  French  mediation. 

When  Peter  reached  Holland,  where  Goertz  had  been 
established  since  the  month  of  May,  1716,  he  was  already 
well  inclined  to  give  ear  to  his  suggestions.  Erskine,  a 
Scotch  doctor,  and  partisan  of  the  Pretender's,  whom  Goertz 
had  contrived  to  place  about  the  Tsar,  had  already  influ- 
enced him  in  that  direction.  The  assistance  of  France 
seemed  quite  assured  ;  the  plan  Goertz  favoured  was  indeed 
no  more  than  the  formulation  of  the  leading  idea  of  the  last 
Franco-Swedish  treaty,  signed  on  the  13th  of  April  171 5. 
France  had  undertaken,  by  its  provisions,  to  support  Charles 
XII.  in  his  efforts  to  recover  his  trans-Baltic  dominions,  and 
to  push  the  claims  of  the  Duke  of  Holstein-Gottorp.  As 
may  have  been  observed,  Goertz's  idea  bore  a  French  brand, 
and  a  good  one, — that  of  Louis  XIV.  and  Torcy.^  The  great 
King  and  his  Minister  had  desired  to  avert  the  complete  ruin 
of  that  s}'stem  of  alliances,  which  had,  for  centuries,  estab- 
lished the  position  of  PVance  in  Central  Europe,  as  opposed 
to  that  of  the  Emperor.  The  gradual  weakening  of  Poland 
and  Turke}',  and  the  blows  struck  by  Russia  at  Sweden,  had 
r;apped  the  foundations  of  this  edifice.  The  idea  of  recon- 
structing it  with  other  materials,  to  be  supplied  by  Russia 
itself,  was  not  ripe,  and  a  long  period  was  to  elai^se  before 
the  spirit  of  routine,  and  a  more  legitimate  attachment  to 
old  and  venerable  traditions,  could  be  overcome.  In  the 
meanwhile  Goertz's  plan  offered  a  fairly  suitable  expedient. 

From  the  month  of  July  to  that  of  November,  17 16,  the 
Hague  became  the  scene  of  busy  negotiations.  Goertz  him- 
self, the  Swedish  Minister  in  Paris,  Haron  Sparre,  General 
Ranck,  another  Swede,  in  the  Hessian  service,  and  Ponia- 
towski,  Charles  XII. 's  devoted  follower  and    friend,  opened 

'  .Syvelon,  as  already  quoted  (1895),  p.  418. 


FROM  THE  BALTIC  TO  THE  CASPIAN  345 

communications  with  Kourakin,  with  Dubois, — whom  the 
Regent  had  sent  from  Paris, — and  with  Pensionary  Heinsius.^ 
Petter  was  less  and  less  well  inclined  towards  his  German 
allies.  Catherine,  who  was  to  have  followed  him  to  Amster- 
dam, had  been  obliged  to  stop  at  Wesel,  where,  on  the  2nd 
of  January  1717,  she  bore  a  child,  the  Tsarevitch  Paul,  who 
only  lived  a  few  days.  This  unfortunate  event  was  attri- 
buted by  her  husband  to  the  manner  in  which  she  had  been 
treated,  during  her  journey  through  Hanover.  Her  coach- 
man had  actually  been  beaten  !  But  Dubois  had  come  to 
Holland  for  a  very  different  purpose  from  that  of  supporting 
Goertz.  Louis  xiv.  was  dead.  The  direction  of  P'rench 
policy  had  slipped  from  Torcy's  grasp,  and  the  Regent  had 
sent  Dubois  to  meet  Stanhope,  and  come  to  an  understand- 
ing with  Great  Britain,  on  a  subject  which,  for  some  years, 
was  to  take  precedence  of  all  other  considerations  and 
political  combinations — the  coveted  succession  to  the  throne 
of  the  '  Grand  Monarque.' 

This  fatal  coincidence  brought  about  the  ruin  of  Goertz's 
plan.  When  France  failed  him,  Peter  endeavoured  to  come 
to  an  understanding  with  England.  But,  in  February  1717, 
Gyllenborg,  the  Swedish  Minister  in  London,  was  arrested 
on  suspicion  of  having  a  secret  understanding  with  the  Pre- 
tender, and  the  Russian  Resident,  Viesselovski,  was  impli- 
cated with  him.  He  contrived  to  exculpate  himself,  and  the 
Tsar  despatched  Kourakin  to  the  rescue,  with  orders  to  pro- 
pose a  very  favourable  commercial  treaty,  as  a  preliminary  to 
a  political  alliance.  But  another  preliminar)',  the  evacua- 
tion of  Mecklenburg,  was  at  once  demanded,  on  the  British 
side.  Peter  was  forced  to  acknowledge  that  he  need 
expect  nothing  from  that  quarter, — the  King  of  England  and 
the  Elector  of  Hanover  being  evidently  agreed  to  drive  him 
away  from  Germany  and  the  Baltic !  Once  more  he  fell 
back  on  P^rance,  and  in  March  1717,  he  resolved  to  try  his 
fortune  there  in  person.  Pie  had  recci\ed  favourable  news 
from  Berlin  ;  Prussia  seemed  inclined  to  act  as  mediator, 
and  even  to  share  in  any  agreement  arrived  at.  1  shall 
speak,  in  a  later  chapter,  and  in  some  detail,  of  the  Tsar's 
residence  on   the  banks   of  the   Seine,   and    of  the    partial 

^  Ulilenberg,  Researches  among  the  Kussian  Stale  Papers,  for  the  History 
of  the  Kelations  between  Russia  and  the  Low  Countries  (The  Ila^iie,  1S91), 
J).  192  ;  Scheltenia,  Russia  and  the  Low  Countries,  vol.  iii.  p.  323,  cic. 


346  PETER  THE  GREAT 

success  which  crowned  his  personal  attempts  at  diplomacy, 
partial  though  they  were.  But  when  his  Ministers,  Golovkin, 
Shafirof,  and  Kourakin,  returned  to  Amsterdam  from  Paris, 
whither  they  had  accompanied  their  master,  they  signed  a 
treaty, — with  Chateauneuf  for  France,  and  Cnyphausen  for 
Prussia, — the  essential  condition  of  which  was  the  accept- 
ance of  French  mediation  to  put  an  end  to  the  Northern 
War.     Thus  Goertz's  scheme  won  the  day. 

The  unattractive  diplomatist  had  won  the  Tsar's  personal 
favour,  Peter  agreed  to  meet  him  privately  at  the  Castle  of 
Loo,  and  at  once  entered  into  his  plans.  He  charged  him 
with  proposals  for  a  separate  peace  with  Charles,  himself 
undertaking  to  remain  quiescent  for  a  period  of  three  months, 
and  Goertz  proceeded,  with  Russian  passports,  to  Revel, 
whence  he  was  to  rejoin  his  master  in  Sweden.  The  results 
of  this  new  diplomatic  complication  soon  became  evident. 
Early  in  January  171 8,  attention  was  roused  in  the  political 
world  of  St  Petersburg  by  the  sudden  departure  of  General 
Bruce,  Master  of  the  Ordnance,  and  of  Ostcrmann.  Whither 
were  they  bound?  The  Dutch  Resident,  De  Bie,  observed 
that  Bruce  had  taken  '  new  and  rich  clothes  and  silver  plate  * 
away  with  him.  As  he  was  known  to  be  very  stingy,  these 
pre[)arations  looked  suspicious,  and  the  rough  words  and 
angry  outbursts  with  which  Ostermann  replied  to  certain 
discreet  questions  put  by  Weber,  the  Hanoverian  Resident, 
— as.serting  that  he  was  merely  going  on  a  tour  of  inspection, 
— were  considered  far  from  reassuring.^  In  the  month  of 
May,  the  whole  of  Europe  knew  what  it  meant.  Bruce  and 
Ostermann,  as  representing  Russia,  with  Goertz  and  Gyllen- 
borg  for  Sweden,  had  met  at  Aland,  to  treat  for  peace.  To 
cut  short  all  quarrels  as  to  precedence,  the  partition  between 
two  rooms  was  thrown  down,  and  the  conference  table  was 
set  in  the  middle,  half  in  one  room  and  half  in  the  other. 
The  real  object  of  the  meeting  was  more  difficult  of  attain- 
ment. Goertz  demanded  the  statu  quo  ante,  and  the  surrender 
of  everything  which  had  been  taken  from  Sweden.  Peter 
would  only  agree  to  evacuate  h'inland.  The  Tsar,  it  must 
be  said,  showed  him.self  dispo.sed,  in  other  matters,  to  be  more 
than  liberal.  He  offered  Sweden  any  equivalent  her  King 
chose  to  take,  amongst  the  King  of  England's  German  po.s- 
sessions.     He  expected   Charles   Xll.  to  keep  whatever  he 

'  De  Hie  to  Heinsius,  J.in.  21,  17 18.     Dutch  Stale  Papers. 


FROM  THE  BALTIC  TO  THE  CASPIAN         '      347 

might  lay  his  hands  on  without  help  from  him,  but  he  was 
willing  to  assist  him  in  his  conquest,  and  would  even,  if 
necessary,  support  the  Pretender  in  England  with  that  object. 
As  the  bwedes  appeared  to  see  little  attraction  about  these 
proposals,  the  Tsar  desired  his  plenipotentiaries  to  try  what 
corruption  would  do.  Gyllenborg,  he  opined,  was  not 
likely  to  despise  a  gift  of  rich  lands  in  Russia.  But  the 
Hanoverians,  he  was  informed,  had  already  bought  over  the 
Swedish  Minister,  Miller,  and  the  ingenuous  Sovereign  was 
very  much  annoyed.^  Yet  more  serious  obstacles, — reports 
as  to  a  popular  insurrection  in  Russia,  resulting  from  the 
trial  of  the  Tsarevitch  Alexis,  which  roused  Charles  Xll.'s 
hopes  and  made  him  stubborn, — the  difficulty  of  recovering 
Stettin,  which  the  Swedish  King  refused  to  cede  to  Prussia, 
— arose,  and  prevented  a  final  arrangement.  At  last  the 
catastrophe  of  Frederickshald,  where  Charles  was  killed,  on 
the  /th  September  171S,  cut  the  negotiations  short.  Goertz, 
accused  by  Ulrica-Eleonora,  Princess  PVederick  of  Hesse- 
Cassel,  who  succeeded  her  brother,  of  conniving  with  Russia 
against  Swedish  interests,  was  imprisoned,  condemned,  and 
sent  to  the  scaffold.  Thus  the  mighty  Northern  crisis  entered 
on  yet  another  phase. 


The  Aland  negotiations  were  re-opened.  Goertz  was 
replaced  by  Baron  Lilienstadt,  and  Peter  sent  lagoujinski, 
with  more  tempting  proposals,  including  the  cession  of 
Livonia.  Bnt  even  these  did  not  suffice,  and  the  Tsar 
betook  himself  to  strong  coercive  measures.  In  July  1 7 19, 
a  huge  Russian  fleet,  numbering  30  warships,  130  galleys, 
and  100  smaller  craft,  descended  on  the  Swedish  coast,  and 
Major-general  Lascy  marched  into  the  country,  and  burnt 
130  villages,  besides  mills,  stores,  and  factories,  without 
number.  A  troop  of  Cossacks  actually  advanced  within  a 
league  and  a  half  of  the  Capital.  But  the  shadow  of  the 
heroic  king  still  hovered  over  his  country.  The  Swedish 
Government  and  people  came  gallantly  through  the  trial. 
When  Ostermann  made  his  appearance  at  Stockholm,  with 
the  object  of  parleying,  the  Prince  of  Hesse-Cassel,  and 
Kronhelm,    President   of  the   Senate,    told   him  they  were 

'  LcUcr  to  Kouiakiii,  ti.itcd  Sept.  27,  1718.     Aouia/.iii  J'a^crs,  vol.  i,  p.  4. 


348  PETER  THE  GREAT 

ready  to  give  every  facility  for  the  disembarkation  of  the 
Russian  troops  in  Sweden,  so  as  to  bring  about  such  a 
decisive  battle  as  would  finally  settle  the  matter.  Mean- 
while Ulrica-Eleanora,  by  ceding  Bremen  and  Werdcn  to 
Hanover,  had  won  the  su])p(>rt  of  Groat  l^ritain,  and  the 
Court  of  Vienna — already  on  bad  terms  with  that  of  St. 
Petersburg,  on  account  of  the  trial  of  Alexis,  and  jealous  of 
Prussia, — showed  a  still  stronger  inclination  to  support 
Sweden.  In  June  1720,  the  London  Cabinet  brought  about 
a  reconciliation  between  Sweden  and  Denmark  ;  the  former 
paying  an  indemnity  of  600,000  ducats,  and  surrendering 
the  ric^ht  of  collecting  tolls  on  the  Sound,  while  the  latter 
ceded  all  the  places  taken  from  Sweden,  both  in  Pomerania 
and  in  Norway.  Kourakin,  at  the  Hague,  was  reduced  to 
seeking  the  help  of  Spain,  and  the  F'rench  Resident,  La  Vie, 
writes  from  St.  Petersburg :  '  The  Tsar's  uneasy  movements 
and  fits  of  rage  betray  the  violence  of  the  passions  which 
disturb  him  .  .  .  The  natural  functions  are  interrupted  by 
constant  sleeplessness,  and  the  peoi)le  about  him,  in  their 
desire  to  conceal  the  real  subject  of  his  anxiety,  which  is  all 
too  visible,  declare  he  is  haunted  by  ghosts.'^  The  subject 
of  anxiety  referred  to,  was  the  fesult  of  twenty  years  of 
effort,  which  Peter  now  saw  imperilled  by  the  defection  of 
allies  he  himself  had  imprudently  associated  with  his 
victorious  arms,  whose  sole  object  was,  to  snatch  the  prize 
of  his  own  exertions  from  his  grasp.  The  bodies  and 
souls  of  his  people,  worn  out  and  exhausted  by  this  endless 
war,  cried  out  to  the  Sovereign,  in  the  horror  of  his  sleepless 
nights.  To  this  his  alliances  with  the  great  European 
Powers,  his  attempts  at  pla\'ing  a  bold  political  game,  and 
all  the  showy  diplomac)'  lie  had  borrowed  from  the  tradition 
and  practice  of  other  nations,  had  brought  him  at  last! 

Happily  for  him,  the  Great  Powers,  though  they  would 
gladly  have  made  him  pay  dear  for  his  im [prudence  and 
presumption,  lacked  the  means  of  forcing  him  to  it.  A 
British  Squadron,  commanded  by  Norris,  threatened  Revel 
in  May  1720.  The  English  Admiral  successfully  joined  the 
Swedish  fleet,  but,  after  some  attempts  at  intimidation,  all 
that  was  done  was  to  burn  an  isba  and  a  baiiia  (bath)  built 
by  some  labourers  on  a  neighbouring  islet.  While  this  was 
going  on,  a  Russian  Detachment  led  by  Mengden  had  made 

'  June  6,  1 7 19  (French  Foreign  OfTicc). 


FROM  THE  BALTIC  TO  THE  CASPIAN  349 

a  fresh  descent  on  Sweden,  and  burnt  1026  peasants'  houses. 
*  The  loss  inflicted  on  your  Majesty  by  the  allied  fleets  in 
the  Isle  of  Nargin,'  writes  Menshikof,  'is  a  very  serious  one ; 
but  on  the  whole  we  must  make  up  our  minds  to  it,  and 
leave  the  isba  to  the  Swedish  fleet,  and  the  bauia  to  the 
British  ! ' 

France  now  appeared  upon  the  scene,  but  this  far  more 
successful  intervention  was  purely  pacific,  and  equally 
salutary  to  both  countries,  which  ardently  desired  peace.  It 
resulted  in  a  fresh  meeting  of  Russian  and  Swedish  pleni- 
potentiaries, at  Nystadt,  in  April  1721.  The  way  had  been 
prepared  by  Campredon,  who  shortly  before,  and  with  the 
Tsar's  consent,  had  travelled  from  St  Petersburg  to  Stock- 
holm. The  only  point  on  which  Sweden  now  insisted  was 
that  the  Duke  of  Holstein,  with  whom  Peter  had  again 
made  rash  engagements,  should  be  entirely  put  out  of  the 
question.  This  prince  had,  by  the  death  of  his  uncle,  really 
become  the  legitimate  heir  to  the  Swedish  throne,  and 
Peter  desired  to  support  and  make  use  of  his  rights,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Russian  policy.  He  had  invited  Charles 
Frederick  to  St.  Petersburg  in  June  1720,  had  received  him 
in  the  most  flattering  manner,  and  had  promised,  and  almost 
offered,  him,  the  hand  of  his  daughter,  the  Tsarevna  Anna; 
while  Catherine,  we  are  told,  had  publicly  assured  him  '  that 
she  should  be  happy  to  become  the  mother-in-law  of  a 
Prince,  whose  subject  she  might  have  been,  if  fortune  had 
not  played  Sweden  false.'  ^ 

The  Russian  sovereign,  we  know,  held  himself  little  fettered 
by  any  promise,  and  he  finally,  without  a  tinge  of  scruple, 
threw  the  unlucky  Duke  overboard,  with  all  his  rights,  and 
ambitions,  and  hopes.  On  the  3rd  of  September  172F,  a 
courier  from  Wiborg  brought  the  Tsar  news  that  peace  was 
signed.  Russia  was  to  pay  an  indemnity  of  2,000,000 
crowns,  and  definitely  acquired  possession  of  Livonia, 
Esthonia,  Ingria,  part  of  Carelia,  the  town  of  Wiborg,  and 
a  portion  of  Finland.  Great  Britain  and  Poland  were 
both  parties  to  the  treaty,  the  former  on  Sweden's  side,  the 
latter  on  that  of  Peter, — but  the  Duke  of  Holstein's  name 
did  not  appear  at  all. 

The  great  evolution  of  the  Muscovite  power,  the  end  of 
the  Oriental  and  Continental  period  of  Russian  history,  the 

'  Solovief,  vol.  xvii.  p.  269. 


350  PETER  THE  GREAT 

commencement  of  its  western  and  maritime  phase,  were  thus 
accomplished.  A  new  factor,  and  one  of  constantly  increas- 
ing importance,  had  taken  its  place  in  European  politics. 
The  end  of  Peter's  rouij^h  toil  and  terrible  apprenticeship  had 
come  at  last.  He  was  free,  now,  to  listen  to  the  delighted 
acclamations  of  his  subjects,  who,  worn-out,  exhausted,  and 
terrified  as  they  had  finall)- been,  had,  in  spite  of  all,  followed 
him  to  the  bitter  end,  and  now  shared  his  overflowing  joy 
and  intense  relief  liack  he  went,  straightway,  to  St.  Peters- 
burg, sailing  up  the  Neva,  with  flourishes  of  trumpets  and 
salvoes  from  the  three  cannons  of  his  yacht.  The  populace 
rushed  to  the  landing-stage  of  the  Troitsa.  The  Tsar  ap- 
peared in  the  distance,  standing  on  the  poop,  waving  a  hand- 
kerchief, and  shouting  'Mir!  mir  ! '  (peace);  he  bounded 
ashore,  as  active  and  eager  as  in  his  youthful  days,  and 
hurried  to  the  Church  of  the  Trinity,  where  a  thanksgiving 
service  was  celebrated.  Meanwhile  a  wooden  stage  was 
hastily  built  on  the  square  before  the  sacred  edifice.  Barrels 
of  beer  and  brandy  were  piled  upon  it ;  Peter,  when  he  had 
rendered  thanks  to  God,  mounted  the  platform,  spoke  in 
heartfelt  terms  of  the  great  event,  and  then,  empt)'ing  a  glass 
of  brandy,  gave  the  signal  for  the  triumphal  libations.^  The 
officers  of  his  navy  came  to  congratulate  him,  and  requested 
him  to  accept  the  rank  of  full  admiral — a  consecration  this, 
of  the  new  position  conquered  by  the  country  on  the  15altic, 
and  the  new  part  its  ruler  was,  in  consequence,  to  play.  The 
Tsar  consented  willingly.  Then  the  Senate  proffered  him 
three  new  titles,  '  Eather  of  his  Country — Peter  the  Great — 
Emperor.'  This  time  he  hesitated.  Both  he  himself,  and 
his  predecessors,  had  been  tempted  in  this  quarter.  The 
pretension  to  claim  that  the  word  Tsaj-  was  equivalent  to 
desar,  or  Kaiser,  had  arisen,  in  Russia,  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  simultaneously  with  the  tendency, — natural  in  a 
power  which  inclined  to  European  forms, — to  repudiate  its 
Asiatic  origin.  The  word,  which  was  originally  used  to 
describe  the  Tartar  Princes  of  Kazan,  corresponds  to  the 
Persian  Sar,  the  English  Sir,  and  the  P^-ench  Sire.  In  a 
treaty  between  the  Emj)eror  Maximilian,  and  the  Grand  Duke 
Vassili  Ivanovitch,  the  Imperial  title  had  been  somewhat 
carelessly  bestowed  on  the  Muscovite  Prince,  and  on  that 
equivocal  recognition,  the  dignity  had  hitherto  rested.     But, 

^  Choubinski,  Historical  Descriptions,  p.  31,  etc. 


FROM  THE  BALTIC  TO  THE  CASPIAN  351 

in  171 1,  Kourakin  had  thought  himself  obliged  to  erase  the 
word  Tsarian  added  to  the  title  of  Majesty,  in  the  letter 
sent  by  Queen  Anne  to  his  lord  and  master.  Peter  himself 
had  appeared  indifferent,  and  almost  hostile,  to  the  idea  of 
claiming  such  dignity,  and  explained  his  personal  repugnance 
by  a  phrase  at  once  energetic  and  picturesque.  '  It  smells 
musty  ! '  In  172 1,  he  waived  his  objections,  but  imposed  one 
change.  He  would  call  himself  Emperor  of  all  the  Kussias, 
not  Emperor  of  the  East,  as  the  senators  had  proposed.  He 
clearly  recognised  the  difficulty  with  which  Europe  would 
be  brought  to  acknowledge  this  change  of  title.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  France  and  Holland  were  at  first  the  only 
countries  which  would  recognise  him.  Sweden  did  not 
consent  to  do  so  till  1723;  Turkey  ten  years  later;  Great 
Britain  and  Austria  in  1742;  France  again,  and  Spain,  in 
1745  ;  and  Poland,  the  most  interested  of  all,  not  until  1764, 
at  the  accession  of  Poniatowski,  and  on  the  eve  of  the  first 
partition. 

Thus  the  Russia  of  '  all  the  Russias,'  including  the  pro- 
vinces which  the  Polish  hegemony  had  carried  over,  five 
centuries  before,  to  European  civilisation,  made  a  final  and 
definite  entrance  into  history. 

The  Emperor  himself  lighted  the  fireworks  at  the  festivi- 
ties held  in  honour  of  the  proclamation  of  this  new  title — the 
person  who  had  been  specially  trusted  with  this  duty  being 
discovered  to  be  dead  drunk.  'Ihe  sovereign,  too,  drank 
freely,  and  amused  himself,  in  fact,  more  than  all  his  subjects 
put  together.  But  on  the  morrow,  he  was  afoot  early,  as 
usual,  and  back  at  his  work.  Peace  was  not  to  mean  idle- 
ness for  him  ;  beside,  and  even  beyond,  its  immediate  benefit, 
he  desired  to  endow  his  people  with  a  moral  one,  of  much 
larger,  nay,  of  indefinite  scope.  Those  twenty  years  of 
struggle  were,  so  he  held,  to  be  above  all  things  a  school, 
'  with  lessons  of  triple  and  most  cruel  length,'  as  he  him- 
self says,  in  one  of  the  letters  written  to  his  friends,  to  an- 
nounce the  happy  event.  Knowledge  in  itself  counted 
for  nothing.  They  must  profit,  and  at  once,  from  what  they 
had  learnt.  What  was  to  be  done?  Make  war  again? 
Why  not  ">  He  felt  no  weariness  himself,  and  soon  forgot 
the  weariness  of  those  about  him.  Yet  another  military 
enterprise  tempted  his  fancy :  one  with  yet  wider  horizons 
than  those  which  '  the  window  open  upon  Europe,'  on  the 


352  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Baltic  side,  had  spread  before  his  eyes.  The  very  historian 
who  essays  to  follow  the  Tsar  through  this  mighty  under- 
taking, feels  his  breath  fail  him. 


VI 

Even  (luring  his  struggle  to  increase  his  empire,  and  his 
influence  towards  the  West,  Peter  did  not  lose  sight  of  his 
eastern  frontier.  As  early  as  1691,  the  Burgomaster  of 
Amsterdam,  Nicholas  Witsen,  had  drawn  his  attention, 
through  the  Dutch  Resident  at  Moscow,  to  the  important  com- 
mercial relations  which  might  be  established  between  Russia 
and  Persia.  The  journey  of  Isbrand,  a  Danish  traveller,  into 
China,  in  1692,  brought  about  some  acquaintance  with  that 
country.  One  of  Peter's  most  devoted  assistants  in  the 
building  of  ships  and  the  making  of  canals,  John  Perry,  had 
studied  the  Caspian  coast,  where,  after  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  Astrakhan  had  grown  into  an  im- 
portant mart  of  commerce  between  Armenia  and  Persia. 
Repeated  attempts  to  gain  possession  of  the  markets  of 
Pekin,  where  a  Russian  Church  was  actually  built,  met 
with  no  success.  Colonel  Ismai'lof,  sent  there  as  Am- 
bassador, in  1 7 19,  found  himself  forestalled  by  the  Jesuits, 
who  were  already  firmly  established.^  The  only  result  of 
this  disappointment  was  to  strengthen  Peter's  determination 
to  open  himself  some  other  road  towards  the  far  P'ast.  If 
China  failed  him,  he  would  try  India.  The  idea  of  meeting 
England  there,  and  checking  her,  certainly  never  entered 
his  head.  His  only  object  was  to  secure  a  share  in  that 
great  mine  of  wealth,  which  had  enriched  almost  every 
P.uropean  Power.  He  first  turned  his  eyes  on  Khiva  and 
Bokhara,  the  earliest  stages  on  the  Oxus  route,  by  which  he 
hoped  to  reach  Delhi,  whence  the  English  had  not  }-et  dis- 
lodged the  Great  Mogul.  This  road  had  already  been  ex- 
plored by  Russian  merchants.  After  the  unlucky  campaign 
of  171 1,  the  temptation  to  make  up  eastward,  on  the  Casj:)ian, 
for  what  had  been  lost  on  the  south,  towards  the  Black  Sea, 
became  more  urgent.  In  17 13,  the  reports  brought  to 
Moscow  by  a  Turcoman   Hodja,  roused  the  Tsar's  covetous- 

*  Baer,  Peters  Verdietiste  um  die  Ernseili-runs;  dcs  Geoi^raphischen  Ketttnisst 
Beitrage  zitr  Keiitniss  des  Kussischen  Keichs  (St.  Pclersburg,  1S72),  vol.  xvL 
pp.  12-32. 


FROM  THE  BALTIC  TO  THE  CASPIAN  353 

ness.  There  was  gold,  this  man  said,  for  the  finding,  on 
the  banks  of  the  Amu-Daria  (Oxus),  and  this  river,  which 
had  formerly  fallen  into  the  Caspian,  and  which  the  Khivans, 
in  their  fear  of  the  Russians,  had  turned  aside  into  the  Sea 
of  Aral,  might  easily  be  brought  back  to  its  original  bed. 
The  Swedish  war  prevented  the  despatch  of  any  important 
expedition,  but  Peter's  longing  was  too  strong  for  him,  and 
he  began  a  system  of  small  detachments,  which  has  since 
been  fatal  to  other  conquerors  in  distant  lands,  and  which 
served  him  little  better.  The  first  detachment,  a  very  weak 
one,  which  took  the  field  in  17 14,  under  the  command  of 
Bergholz,  a  German  officer,  moved  towards  Siberia,  found  its 
way  barred  by  the  Kalmuks,  and  beat  a  retreat.  In  17 17, 
Prince  Alexander  Bekovitch  Tcherkaski,  with  a  stronger 
body,  numbering  4000  infantry,  and  2000  Cossacks,  pushed 
as  far  as  Khiva,  sometimes  negotiating,  and  sometimes  fight- 
ing.    But  he  was  finally  massacred  with  all  his  followers.^ 

Other  attempts  simultaneously  made,  in  the  direction  of 
Persia,  met  with  more  success.  In  17 15,  Artemi  Petrovitch 
Volynski  was  sent  to  the  Shah's  Court,  and  returned  with  a 
treaty  of  commerce,  and  a  project  for  an  expedition  on  a 
grand  scale.  In  1720,  he  was  appointed  Governor  of  Astra- 
khan, and  never  ceased  to  preach,  and  prepare  for,  this  Persian 
Campaign.  This  project  it  was,  which,  on  the  morrow  of  the 
Peace  of  Nystadt,  once  more  roused  Peter's  warlike  activity, 
and  snatched  him  from  the  delights  of  his  '  Paradise.'  The 
condition  of  things  in  Persia  at  that  moment  seemed  to  call 
loudly  for  armed  intervention.  After  the  incursions  of  the 
Lesgians  and  the  Kazykoumyks,  which  ruined  the  Russian 
factories, —  costing  one  merchant  alone,  named  levreinof, 
170,000  roubles  during  the  course  of  the  year  172 1, — the 
Afghans  found  their  way  as  far  as  Ispahan.  If  the  Tsar  did 
not  hurry  himself,  there  was  every  fear  of  his  being  out- 
stripped by  Turkey,  whose  intention  to  re-establish  order  in 
the  Shah's  dominions  was  openly  declared.  Peter,  then, 
decided  to  take  advantage  of  these  propitious  circumstances, 
and,  in  response  to  the  Governor  of  Astrakhan's  eager  call, 
to  take  the  field  with  a  whole  army,  and  personally 
command  it. 

He  started  from  Moscow  on  the  13th  of  May  1722,  v/ith 

*  H.  Sutherland  Edwards,  Russian  Projects  against  India  (London,  1885), 
pp.  1-30. 


354  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Tolstolf,  Apraxin,  and  his  inseparable  companion,  Catherine. 
On  the  i8th  of  July  he  sailed  from  Astrakhan,  with  23,cxxD 
infantry.  His  cavalry,  numbering  some  90CXD  men,  was  to 
travel  by  land,  followed  b\'  a  cloud  of  irregular  troops, — 
20,000  Cossacks,  20,000  Kalmuks,  and  20,000  Tartars, —  and 
to  meet  him  on  the  road  to  Uerbent.  \\  hat  was  the  Tsar's 
object  in  marshalling  this  body  of  100,000  men.''  His 
plans  have  never  been  made  clear.  More  than  probably, 
he  allowed  himself  to  be  carried  away  by  a  desire  to 
counterbalance  the  excessive  weakness  of  his  former  demon- 
strations. And  once  more,  on  this  occasion,  we  notice  the 
strange  lack  of  seriousness  which  accompanied  the  more 
solid  qualities  of  his  mind  and  character.  On  the  23rd  of 
August,  after  a  trifling  skirmish  with  the  troops  of  the  Sultan 
of  Outemich,  he  made  a  triumphal  entry  into  Derbent,  and 
there  received  the  congratulations  of  the  Russian  Senate, 
which  urged  him  to  '  press  forward  in  the  footsteps  of  Alex- 
ander.' Hut  this  new  Alexander  was  soon  obliged  to  stop 
short.  His  soldiers,  like  his  army  in  Moldavia,  ten  years 
before,  were  in  serious  danger  of  starving  to  death.  The 
transports  which  were  to  hav^e  carried  them  sujiplies  had 
been  wrecked  while  crossing  the  Caspian.  Within  a  very 
few  days,  his  cavalry  was  dismounted, — there  was  no  forage, 
and  the  horses  died  in  thousands.  He  left  a  small  garrison 
in  Derbent,  laid  the  first  stone  of  a  Fort,  to  be  called  the 
Holy  Cross,  at  the  confluence  of  the  Soulak  and  the  Agrahan, 
and  retired,  in  pitiful  pomp,  to  Astrakhaii.^ 

i^ut  yet,  once  again,  the  guiding  quality  of  his  nature,  his 
stubbornness,  was  to  atone  for  his  faults.  He  went  back  to 
the  system  of  small  detachments,  sent  Colonel  Shipof,  during 
the  course  of  the  following  year,  with  a  small  body  of  troops, 
to  occupy  the  l^ersian  town  of  Riashtchi,  while  Major-General 
Matioushkine,  at  the  head  of  another,  took  possession  of 
Baku,  which  the  Russian  staff  held  to  be  the  key  of  the  posi- 
tion in  those  localities.  At  the  same  time,  he  had  recourse 
to  diplomacy.  Colonel  Abramof  was  ordered  to  use  all  his 
powers  to  ex{)lain  to  the  Persians  at  Ispahan,  that  the  Tsar's 
only  desire  was  to  come  to  their  assistance  against  the  in- 
surgent tribes,  and,  on  the  12th  of  September  1723,  a  Treaty 
was  signed  at  St.  Petersburg,  by  Isman  Be}',  for  the  Shah 
whereby  the  whole  of  the  longed-for  coastline  of  the  Caspian 

'  Solovicf,  vol.  xviii.  pp.  40-50. 


FROM  THE  BALTIC  TO  THE  CASPIAN  355 

with  Derbent,  Baku  and  the  Provinces  of  Gilian,  Mazanderan, 
and  Astrabat,  were  ceded  to  Russia,  in  exchange  for  a  vague 
promise  of  help  against  the  insurgents.  In  the  month  of 
May,  in  the  foHowing  year,  Peter  was  already  betraying  his 
anxiety  to  make  the  most  of  these  new  acquisitions,  and 
drew  up  detailed  instructions  to  Matioushkine,  to  despatch 
the  local  products, — such  as  petroleum,  sugar,  dried  fruits, 
and  lemons, — to  St.  Petersburg. 

But  this  was  somewhat  premature.  Prince  Boris  Mesh- 
tcherski,  who  went  to  Ispahan  in  April  1724,  to  ratify 
the  Treaty,  was  actually  fired  upon  !  The  Turks,  on  their 
side,  egged  on  by  England,  protested  loudly,  demanded 
immediate  evacuation  of  the  territory  occupied  by  Russia, 
claimed  part,  at  least,  for  themselves,  and  requested  the 
French  Envoy,  the  Marquis  de  Bonac,  to  arrange  the  par- 
tition. De  Bonac,  in  the  course  of  his  efforts  to  arrange 
matters,  fell  out  with  the  Russian  Minister,  Nieplouief,  who 
accused  him  of  betra}'ing  Russian  interests,  after  having 
accepted  2000  ducats  to  defend  them.  The  insolent  Russian 
was  forthwith  turned  out  of  the  Frenchman's  doors ;  but 
stubbornness  was  again  to  win  the  day.^  In  June  1724,  a 
Treaty  of  Partition  was  signed  at  Constantinople,  and  though 
the  limits  thus  determined  were  both  precarious  and  illusory, 
Russia  set  her  foot  firmly  in  those  countries,  and  in  the  long 
run,  by  hook  or  by  crook,  she  was  to  make  her  influence  felt 
there. 

Alexander  Roumiantsof,  who  was  sent  to  Constantinople 
to  exchange  the  ratification  of  this  arrangement,  met  an 
Armenian  deputation  on  its  way  to  St.  Petersburg,  to  solicit 
the  Tsar's  support  against  the  Turks. 

The  movement  then  begun  was  to  be  an  unceasing  one, 
and  the  problem  thus  set,  was  to  threaten  the  future  of 
Europe,  even  at  the  close  of  the  following  century. 

These  first  Armenian  Deputies  were,  as  may  readily  be 
imagined,  received  with  open  arms.  Peter,  with  most  re- 
markable political  insight,  at  once  made  up  his  mind  to 
use  the  protection  of  the  Christian  populations,  whether 
/\rmenians,  or  Georgians,  as  the  basis  of  his  action  in  the 
countries  he  disposed  to  dispute  with  the  Turks  and  Persians. 
But  he  was  never  able  to  carry  out  his  programme.    Already 

'  Soiovief,  vol.  xviii.  p.  58>  etc.  Ue  Don.ic  does  not  refer  lo  this  incident  in 
bis  leporls. 


356  PETER  THE  GREAT 

his  days  were  numbered,  and  those  who  came  after  him 
imperilled  the  work  he  had  designed,  by  losing  sight,  for  a 
time,  of  that  road  to  India  which  he  had  sketched  out.  But 
the  landmarks  he  had  set  up,  remained.  The  Eastern 
Question  was  opened  in  the  direction  he  had  given  it ;  his 
seal  was  on  it. 

He  never  ceased,  during  all  the  rest  of  his  life,  to  give  his 
attention  to  the  Oriental  Christians.  At  the  same  time, — 
impatient  as  he  alwaj's  was,  and  incapable  of  any  quiet 
waiting, — he  endeavoured,  groping  somewhat  in  the  dark,  to 
find  some  other  road,  by  w  liich  he  might  reach  the  distant 
and  mysterious  East. 

In  the  course  of  the  year  1723,  the  Port  of  Rogerwick  was 
all  astir.  Two  frigates  were  being  prepared,  in  greatest  haste, 
and  the  profoundest  secrecy,  to  start  for  some  unknown 
destination.  They  set  sail  on  the  12th  (24th)  of  December, 
were  overtaken  by  a  tempest,  and  obliged  to  take  refuge 
in  the  Port  of  Revel.  A  report  spread,  that  they  were 
bound  for  ^Madagascar,  and  were  to  take  possession  of  that 
island, — destined,  for  two  centuries  yet,  to  tempt  the  colonis- 
ing ambition  of  the  European  Powers.  This  idea,  like  many 
of  Peter's,  was  drawn  from  a  Swedish  source.  Charles  XII., 
a  short  time  before  his  death,  had  entered  into  relations 
with  an  adventurer  named  Morgan,  the  son,  probably,  of 
that  famous  British  buccaneer,  Henry  John  Morgan  (1637- 
1690),  who  died  in  Jamaica,  after  a  stormy  career,  in 
the  course  of  which  he  took  possession  of  the  Isthmus 
of  Panama,  and  ruled  it,  for  some  time,  with  despotic 
authority.  Morgan  boasted  his  power  of  ensuring  the 
Swedes  a  footing  in  Madagascar,  where,  he  averred,  immense 
treasure  was  to  be  had,  with  very  little  trouble.  Queen 
Ulrica-Eleonora  reopened  negotiations  with  him  in  17 19, 
and  had  even  begun  preparations  to  send  an  expedition. 
Then  it  was  that  Peter,  warned  by  his  agents  in  Stockholm, 
determined  to  outstrip  his  neighbours.  But  Madagascar,  to 
his  ardent  imagination,  was,  like  l^aku,  to  be  a  mere  stage. 
The  Commandant  of  his  expedition,  vAdmiral  Wilster,  after 
having  occupied  the  island,  and  established  a  Russian  Pro- 
tectorate over  it,  was  to  pursue  his  course  eastward,  to  the 
fabled  country  ruled  by  the  great  Mogul. 

It  was  only  a  dream.  Peter,  with  his  usual  eagerness  and 
overhastc,  had  not  even  given  himself  time  to  acquire  the 


FROM  THE  BALTIC  TO  THE  CASPIAN  357 

most  elementary  information  as  to  the  country  he  proposed 
to  conquer.  He  did  not  take  the  trouble  to  read  the  docu- 
ments which  had  been  abstracted,  for  his  benefit,  from  the 
Stockhohn  Chancery,  and  he  drew  up  a  letter,  quite  at  hap- 
hazard, to  the  King  (whom  he  supposed  to  reign  over  the 
distant  Island)  pointing  out  that  at  that  moment  a  Russian 
Protectorate  would  be  far  more  advantageous  to  him  than  a 
Swedish  one !  The  Swedes  were  far  better  informed,  lie 
had  pitched  on  the  two  first  frigates  he  could  lay  his  hands 
on,  without  any  consideration  as  to  whether  they  were  fit  to 
face  such  a  long  voyage,  and  fell  into  a  fury  when  he  heard 
how  useless  the  two  frail  vessels  had  proved.  He  flew  at 
Wilster  and  his  officers,  he  stormed  and  threatened,  he  would 
not  hear  of  the  plan  being  given  up.  He  suggested  a  sheath- 
ing of  felt  and  boards,  to  be  placed  over  the  submerged 
timbers,  and  compensate  for  their  inferior  quality,  and  he 
commanded  the  Admiral  to  lie  low  at  Rogerwick,  under  a 
feigned  name,  and  to  start  as  soon  as  possible.  It  was  all  in 
vain  ;  the  frigates  w'ere  useless,  no  felt  sheathing  was  to  be 
had  at  Revel,  and,  early  in  1724,  the  expedition  was  formally 
deferred  to  a  later  date.^  It  was  never  attempted  again 
during  the  great  Tsar's  life.  After  his  death,  his  country, 
once  it  had  shaken  off  the  fumes  of  his  maritime  intoxica- 
tion, came  to  a  better  understanding  of  the  resources, 
direction,  and  natural  limits,  of  the  Russian  colonising  power. 
The  part  thus  pla)'ed  has  been  brilliant  enough  ! 

^  Golikof,  vol.  ix.  p.  300,  etc.  ;  vol.  x.  p.  370,  etc. ;  Russian  Naval  Review, 
March  1894. 


CHAPTER     III 

THE     APOGEE — FRANCE 

Peter's  first  plan  for  a  joi:rncy  into  France,  and  its  failure — The  Tsar's  dis- 
pleasure—  Attempted  agreement — France  takes  the  initiative — Du  Meron— 
Baluze — Matvieiefs  journey  to  Paris — Rupture  of  diplomatic  relations  — 
A  non-poliiical  agreement — Frenchmen  in  Russia,  and  Russians  in  France 
— Two  currents  of  emigration — The  French  colony  in  St.  }*etershurg — A 
Strange  parish — P'ather  Cailleau — Fresh  negotiations — Lcfort — Comte  de 
la  Marck — Peter's  unsatisfactory  pfisition  in  Germany  induces  him  to  seek 
fresh  support — He  resolves  to  go  to  I'aris. 

Arrival  at  I'unkirk — The  Tsar's  incognito — A  suite  of  85  persons — An  ex- 
acting Sovereign — The  sorrows  of  Monsieur  de  Lilxiy — The  Comte  de 
Mailly-Nesle — Tne  CahrioleL — A  strange  mode  of  transport — The  Tsar  s 
supper  at  Beauvais  — His  arrival  in  Pans— Apartment  in  the  L<;)uvre — A 
billet  on  the  French  Academy — The  Motel  Lesdiguicres— Three  days  im- 
prisonment— The  Tsar  insists  on  receiving  the  King's  visit  before  he  goes 
out — Ceremonious  rece|jtion — Fti()uelte  forgotten— In  the  Tsar's  arms — 
Peler  recovers  his  liberty — A  tourist — His  curiosity — His  huffiness  and 
stinginess — An  evening  at  the  opera — The  Regent  waits  on  the  Tsar  — 
Displeasure  of  the  piinces  and  princesses — The  Duchesse  de  Rohan's 
mishap— The  Tsar  softens — A  visit  to  St.  Cyr — History  and  legend— A 
letter  from  Madame  de  Maintenon — Visits  to  scientific  institutions — 
Serinus  occupations  and  amusements — The  reverse  of  the  medal  — Oigies 
at  the  I  rianon — The  return  from  Fiintaincbleau — Departure — Final  gener- 
osity— The  Tsar  pays  his  reckoning — On  the  way  to  Spa. 

Political  results— Non-existent  at  first — Performances  on  the  diplomatic  slack- 
rope— No  one  but  the  Tsar  has  any  sirious  desire  to  negotiate — The 
Congress  of  the  Hague — A  Pl.itonic  treaty — The  diplomats  representing 
both  sides  are  not  worthy — H.iron  von  Schleinitz,  and  tellamare— Fresh 
advances  from  the  Tsar — 'I  heir  secret  reason — He  desires  to  marry  his 
daughter  to  a  French  prince  — 1  he  Tsarevna  Ehzabclh  —  Louis  xv.  or 
the  Hue  de  Chartres —These  overtures  coldly  received  in  France — 
Dubois'  silence— His  reasons— Secret  differences — France  desires  a  i>oli- 
tical,  and  Russia  a  family  alliance — No  room  for  an  understanding — Ihe 
alliance  of  the  future. 


Peter's  journey  into  France,  following  as  it  did  on  his 
briiliiint  appearance  at  the  head  of  the  four  sqLiadron.s  united 
under  his  command,  in  the  roads  of  Copenha<,^en,  marks  the 
most  glorious  point  in  his  reign.      In  sj^ite  of  his  triumph  at 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  359 

Nystadt,  subsequent  events,  his  political  disappointments 
and  domestic  troubles,  his  rupture  with  the  allies  he  had 
bought  too  dearly,  the  trial  of  the  Tsarevitch,  and  the  Alons 
affair,  strike  us  as  reverses  of  fortune, — his  star  had  begun  to 
decline. 

Since  1701,  not  a  year  had  passed  during  which  the  Tsar 
had  failed  to  cross  the  frontiers  of  his  empire.  He  had 
travelled,  incessantly,  up  and  down  Europe,  now  to  visit  his 
chosen  allies  in  their  various  capitals,  and  then  to  seek  the 
re-establishment  of  his  steadily  failing  health  at  Carlsbad  or 
at  Pyrmont.  In  1698,  during  his  first  great  journey,  he  had 
turned  longing  eyes  towards  Paris.  He  had  expected,  and 
even  tried  to  obtain,  an  invitation,  but  had  failed.^  He  soon 
consoled  himself  '  The  Russians,'  so  he  was  heard  to  say, 
'  need  the  Dutchmen  on  the  sea,  and  the  Germans  on  land, 
but  they  have  no  need  of  Frenchmen  anywhere.'  Yet  rela- 
tions between  the  two  countries,  undeveloped  as  they  were, 
suffered  from  the  wound  inflicted  on  the  Russian  Sovereign's 
vanity,  and  the  interests  of  Frenchmen  in  the  north  were 
equally  affected.  But  this  fact  was  treated  in  France  with 
an  indifference  which  certainly  equalled  the  Tsar's  openly 
expressed  scorn.  The  war  of  the  Spanish  Succession  ab- 
sorbed the  French  mind.  To  the  most  Christian  king,  as  to 
the  majority  of  his  subjects,  Russia  was  a  very  distant  object,  of 
very  doubtful  interest.  And  her  ruler,  in  their  eyes,  was  an 
exotic,  whimsical,  obscure,  and, — taking  him  all  in  all, — a  far 
from  attractive  figure.  Until  17 16,  the  name  of  the  victor  of 
Poltava  was  not  even  included  in  the  list  of  European 
Sovereigns  printed  yearly  in  Paris  ! 

Yet  Peter  had  talked, — at  Birze,  in  1701, — with  the  French 
Envoy  to  the  King  of  Poland,  and  the  intercourse  thus 
begun,  through  Du  H^ron,  was  continued  through  the 
Russian  Envoy  to  the  Court  of  Augustus,  through  Patkul,  and 
other  intermediaries.  Unfortunately  a  cardinal  misunder- 
standing at  once  arose.  The  French  King  considered  himself 
to  be  dealing  with  a  second-rate  power,  who  was  greatly 
honoured  by  his  notice,  and  was  therefore  likely  to  be  far 
from  exacting — a  second  Poland,  in  fact,  more  distant,  less 
civilised,  and  yet  more  likely  to  be  easily  secured  to  his 
service,  by  a  modest  salary,  and  a  few  smooth  words.  The 
Russian   Tsar  expected  to  treat  with   F'rance  as  her  equal. 

^  Oustrialof,  History  of  Piter  the  Great,  vol.  iii.  pp.  135  and  4S9. 
24 


36o  PETER  THE  GREAT 

One  of  the  most  essential  forces  of  modern  Russia — I  refer 
to  that  hiy^h  opinion  of  her  importance  and  power,  which  she 
never  failed  to  assert,  even  before  it  was  evidently  justified — 
was  splendidly  exemplified  on  this  occasion.  \\  hen  Du 
Hdron  spoke  of  an  ai^recment  between  the  two  countries,  his 
Russian  interlocutor  replied,  that  'a  union  and  intimate 
alliance  between  the  two  heroes  of  the  century  (Louis  XIV. 
and  Peter)  would  assuredly  rouse  the  highest  admiration 
throughout  the  whole  of  Europe!'^  This  compliment,  coming, 
as  it  did,  on  the  very  morrow  of  the  defeat  of  Narva,  must 
have  been  doubtfully  welcome  to  France! 

In  1703,  Balu/.e,  Du  Heron's  successor  in  Poland,  journeyed 
to  Moscow,  and  returned  somewhat  crestfallen.  He  had 
expected  to  receive  overtures  from  Peter,  and  all  he  had 
received  was  a  dry  request  to  make  overtures  himself  Up 
to  the  }-ear  1705,  the  Russian  agent  in  Paris  was  an  unim- 
portant individual,  named  Postnikof,  whose  chief  occupation 
appears  to  have  been  to  translate  and  publish  the  official 
reports  cf  the  more,  or  less,  authentic  victories,  won  by  his 
master  over  the  Swedes.  If  the  truth  must  be  told,  former 
Muscovite  Embassies  had  left  far  from  pleasant  memories  be- 
hind them  on  the  banks  of  the  Seine.  The  Embassy,  headed 
by  the  Princes  Dolgorouki  and  Mcshtcherski,  in  1667,  had 
very  nearly  caused  a  sanguinar}-  scuffle.  These  gentlemen 
hacl  claimed  the  right  to  introduce  a  whole  cargo  of  saleable 
merchandise  into  the  French  dominions,  without  paxing 
duty,  and  had  even  offered  armed  resistance  to  the  Custom 
House  officials.^ 

In  1705,  Matvieief  went  from  the  Hague  to  Paris,  and  was 
obliged  at  once  to  struggle  with  public  prejudice,  with  re- 
gard to  the  Russians  and  their  Sovereign.  '  Is  it  true  ? '  he  was 
asked,  'that  during  the  Tsar's  visit  to  Holland,  he  broke  his 
glass  when  he  saw  it  had  been  filled  with  French  wine  .^' 
'  His  Majesty  delights  in  champagne  ! '  '  And  is  it  true  that 
he  ordered  Menshikof  one  day  to  hang  his  own  son  ? '  '  W  hy, 
that  is  a  story  of  Ivan  the  Terrible's  days!''  Put  these 
apologetic  remarks  bore  little  fruit,  and  the  poor  diplomat, 
to   enhance  his   discomfort,   was  charged  with    a   (ar   from 

^  flolovin.    Minister    for    Foreign   Affairs,    to   du    Heron,    Dec.     27,     1701 
(French  Foreign  Office). 

*  French  Foreign  Office,  Mi'nioires  el  Documents,  Russia,  v<jl.  iii.  p.  21,  etc. 

*  Solovief,  vol.  XV.  p.  72, 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  361 

agreeable  mission,  relating  to  two  Russian  ships,  which  had 
been  seized  by  the  Dunkirk  Corsairs.  He  could  get  no 
satisfaction.  His  remonstrances,  like  his  historical  recti- 
fications, were  politely  received, — but  the  ships  were  not 
returned. 

A  new  attempt  at  an  understanding  took  place  after  the 
victory  at  Poltava,  and  this  time  Peter  took  his  revenge. 
The  position  was  changed  ;  the  advances  now  came  from  the 
P^rench  side,  and  it  was  the  Tsar's  turn  to  look  scornful. 
Baluze,  who  had  sore  difficulty  in  catching  him  up,  during 
his  constant  journeys  hither  and  thither,  and  who  could  not 
get  speech  with  him  till  May  171 1, — on  the  very  eve  of  the 
campaign  of  the  Pruth, — offered  him  the  mediation  of  France 
between  himself  and  Sweden.  He  was  given  an  ironical  reply. 
The  Tsar,  he  was  told,  was  quite  willing  to  accept  P'rench 
mediation,  but  only  in  .so  far  as  to  arrange  matters  between 
himself  and  the  Turks  !  He  was  made  to  feel  he  was 
looked  on  as  a  bore,  and  systematically  kept  out  of  the 
Sovereign's  presence.  He  was  reduced  to  seeking  the  Tsar 
secretly,  in  the  gardens  at  laworow  ;  and,  when,  after  Peter's 
unlucky  campaign,  he  returned  to  the  charge,  the  Tsar 
simply  refused  to  listen  to  him.^ 

Events  had  altered  circumstances.  The  Powers  allied 
with  Peter  against  Sweden  were  those  the  war  of  the  Spanish 
Succession  had  marshalled  against  France ;  and  the  desire 
to  snatch  '  the  most  powerful  weapon  she  possesses  in  Ger- 
many'—the  support  of  Sweden — from  that  country,  was  a 
natural  bond  between  the  Tsar  and  his  allies. 

Kourakin,  personally,  was  anything  but  anti-French.  His 
high-born  instincts,  and  his  quickly  acquired  habits  as  a  man 
of  the  world,  had  given  him  too  strong  a  taste  for  Paris,  and 
especially  for  Versailles.  He  privately  entered  into  an 
obscure  and  somewhat  shady  negotiation  with  Rakoczy, 
the  head  of  the  Hungarian  insurgents,  which  was  con- 
cealed from  the  Tsar,  and  carried  on  in  a  special  cypher. 
The  object  of  this  negotiation  was  to  put  an  end  to  the 
War  of  the  Spanish  succession,  at  the  expense  of  Austria, 
Russia  playing  the  part — conceived  even  in  those  early  days, 
— of  the  'honest  broker,'  for  the  benefit  of  France.  Rakoczy 
himself  appeared  at  Utrecht  in  April  1712,  in  the  hope  of 
carr}-ing  this  matter  through,  but  he  was  met  by  a  courier 
^  Baluze  to  the  King,  Warsaw,  Sept.  11,  171 1  (French  Foreign  Office). 


362  PETER  THE  GREAT 

from  Shafirof,  who  brought  news  of  the  conclusion  of  an 
aclvanta;j;c()iis  peace  with  Constantinople,  which  peace  'he 
had  succeeded  in  obtaininc^,  in  spite  of  the  intrij^ues  of  the 
French  luivoy,  who  had  behaved  worse  to  Russia  than  any 
Swedes,  or  Polish  or  Cossack  traitors.'  This  cut  the  ground 
from  under  Kourakin's  feet,  and  he  made  no  further  attempt 
to  carry  out  his  project.^ 

Yet,  insensibly,  and  by  the  mere  force  of  circumstances,  the 
gulf  between  the  two  countries  narrowed,  year  by  year. 
Russia,  when  she  entered  the  European  family,  uncon- 
sciously made  a  great  step  towards  this  end.  A  current  of 
natural  and  inevitable  relations  was  slowly  established,  and 
developed,  between  the  two  peoples,  even  while  their  Govern- 
ments remained  apart.  Russians  went  to  France  and  settled 
there.  Frenchmen,  in  still  greater  numbers,  established  them- 
selves in  Russia.  Postnikof  had  already  been  desired  to 
engage  artists,  architects,  engineers  and  surgeons,  in  Paris, 
and  at  first  he  found  it  very  difficult.  '  The  French,'  he  said, 
'ask  a  thousand  crowns  a  year,  and  think  that  to  go  to 
Moscow,  is  to  go  to  the  other  end  of  the  world.'  Yet,  little 
by  little,  the  tide  of  emigration  swelled.  Guillemotte  de 
Villebois,  a  Breto'n  whose  services  Peter  had  personally 
engaged,  during  his  visit  to  Holland,  in  1698,  and  Balthazar 
de  rOsiere,  a  Gascon,  who  had  fought,  in  1695,  under  the 
walls  of  Azof,  in  the  ranks  of  the  Muscovite  army,  formed 
the  centre  of  a  budding  P'rench  colony  in  Russia.  And  1 
note  the  name  of  an  engineer-officer,  Joseph  Gustave  Lam- 
bert de  Guerin,  who  took  an  active  part  in  the  sieges  of 
Noteburg  and  Nienschantz,  and  who,  in  later  years,  advised 
the  Tsar  as  to  the  choice  of  the  site  on  which  St.  Petersburg 
was  built.^ 

After  the  battle  of  Poltava  the  tide  rose  yet  higher.  Two 
French  architects,  Merault  and  De  la  Squire,  were  employed, 
in  1712,  in  building  the  new  capital.  In  1715,  Peter  took 
advantage  of  the  death  of  Louis  XIV.  to  secure,  and  at  a 
cheap  rate,  the  services  of  a  whole  flight  of  artists,  who  had 
been  thrown  out  of  work, — such  as  Rastrelli,  Legcndre, 
Leblanc,  Uavalet,  and  Louis  Caravaque.  In  the  following 
year,  the  direction  of  the  ship-building  establishments  on  the 
Neva  was  intrusted  to  the  Baron  de  St.  Hilaire.     A  certain 

'  fCourakiii  Papers,  vol.  v.  pp.   i,  etc.,  171,  etc.,  178,  184,  197,  209. 
'  BarilicliKamciiski,  Historical  Selections  (Moscow,  1S14),  i)p.  66,  67. 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  363 

Comte  de  Launay  was  made  one  of  the  gentlemen  of  the 
Tsar's  bed-chamber,  and  his  wife  was  chief  Lady  of  Honour 
to  the  young  daughters  of  the  Sovereign,  A  French  Chapel 
was  founded  on  the  Island  of  St.  Basil  at  St.  Petersburg,  and 
the  chaplain,  Father  Cailleau,  a  Franciscan,  assumed  the  title 
of  '  Almoner  to  the  French  nation.'  It  must  be  admitted 
that  neither  the  chaplain,  nor  his  parish,  reflected  great  credit 
on  themselves.  He  was  an  ill-conducted  priest,  who,  before 
leaving  France,  had  contrived  to  get  himself  appointed 
Chaplain  to  Marsillac's  regiment,  and  had  been  discharged 
for  misconduct.  He  was  perpetually  quarrelling  with  his 
St.  Petersburg  flock ;  he  tried  to  force  his  way  into  the 
house  of  Francois  Vasson,  a  smelter  in  the  Tsar's  service, 
and,  when  the  way  was  barred,  he  called  his  wife  a  '  thief,' 
and  '  an  ill-conducted  woman,'  and  treated  her  so  roughly 
that  she  was  forced  to  take  to  her  bed.  He  thundered 
public  excommunication  against  the  painter  Caravaque,  and 
declared  his  marriage  null,  because  the  banns  had  been 
published  elsewhere  than  in  the  \'assili-Ostrow  Chapel.  He 
ordered  the  bride  to  separate  from  her  husband,  and,  when 
she  refused,  he  persecuted  her  with  a  variety  of  coarse  and 
defamatory  songs,  which  formed  the  subject  of  an  action 
brought  against  him,  under  the  auspices  of  the  French  Con- 
sulate. In  his  defence,  the  h'ranciscan  boasted  openly,  that 
he  could  speak  with  full  knowledge  of  the  private  failings  of 
the  lady,  'having  had  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  them, 
prior  to  her  illegal  marriage.'  ^ 

Independently  of  all  this  internal  disorder,  the  condition 
of  the  colony  was,  in  many  respects,  far  from  enviable.  Lam- 
bert de  Gucrin,  after  serving  three  years  and  receiving  no 
reward,  pecuniary  or  otherwise,  beyond  the  Cross  of  St. 
Andrew,  was  forced  to  sell  everything  he  possessed,  to  save 
himself  from  starvation,  and  pay  his  way  back  to  France. 
He  wrote  to  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  in  1717,  '  I  think  myself 
ver)'  happy  to  have  escaped  safe  and  sound  from  the  States 
of  that  Prince  (Peter  I.),  and  to  find  myself  back  in  the 
most  flourishing  kingdom  in  all  the  world  ;  it  is  better  to 
have  bread  and  water  here,  than  to  own  the  whole  of 
Muscovy.'  And  this  was  no  isolated  case,  for,  in  a  despatch 
sent  to  Dubois,  in   1718,  by  the  commercial  agent,  La  Vie,  I 

'  Records  of  the    French    Consulate   at   St.   Petersburg,   July  1720  (French 
Foreign  Office). 


364  PETER  THE  tiREAT 

find  the  folUiwincj  lines  : — 'The  condition  of  a  cjrcat  number 
of  I'Vcnclinicii  who  settle  in  this  country  (Russia)  seems  to 
me  so  sad,  that  1  feel  it  my  duty  to  inform  your  Eminence 
of  it.  Twenty-five,  who  were  formerly  in  the  Tsar's  pay, 
have  been  dischari^ed,  in  spite  of  the  a^rreements  made  with 
thorn  in  Paris  by  the  Sieur  Lefort,  the  Prince's  a^ent.  ...  A 
still  larijer  number  who  were  not  formally  engaged,  and  who 
had  been  promised  funds,  to  be  sent  from  Paris,  to  help  them 
to  establish  themselves,  are  in  a  state  of  the  greatest  poverty, 
owing  to  the  agent's  failure  to  execute  this  promise.'  ^  One 
officer,  named  De  la  Motte,  even  went  so  far,  when  he 
returned  to  his  own  country,  as  to  publish  a  warning  to  the 
public  on  this  subject,  which  made  a  very  great  stir.- 

Yet  the  impulse  had  been  given,  and,  from  year  to  year, 
the  number  of  French  immigrants  into  the  new  Northern 
capital  increased,  at  such  a  rate  as  to  arouse  the  alarm  of 
the  diplomatic  agents  of  other  Powers.  The  Dutch  Kesident, 
De  Bie,  made  a  perfect  outcry.^  Meanwhile,  in  Paris,  Lefort, 
a  nephew  of  lector's  early  friend,  endeavoured,  with  the  help 
of  the  Chancellor,  Pontchartrain,  to  form  a  P"ranco-Russian 
Trading  Company,  but,  just  as  it  seemed  on  the  e\e  of  success, 
this  business  fell  through, — -Lefort  was  arrested  for  debt. 
A  sort  of  fate  seemed  to  hang  over  the  modest  beginnings 
of  the  understanding  which  was  destined  to  such  a  brilliant 
future.  Lefort's  successor  was  a  certain  Ilugueton,  who 
called  himself  Baron  von  Odik,  and  whom  the  French 
Ministry  recognised  as  a  inalefactor,  'a  London  bankrupt 
whom  the  King  would  have  hanged,  and  justly,  if  the  King 
of  I'lngland  would  have  paid  attention  to  the  requests  made 
for  the  possession  of  the  wretch,  who  had  taken  refuge  in 
London.'  Then  came  an  unsuccessful  attempt  on  the 
French  side.  The  Due  d'Orlcans  sent  the  Comte  de  la 
i\Larck  on  a  secret  mission  to  the  Tsar,  at  the  springs  of 
Pyrmont,  in  17 16,  with  directions  to  test  the  strength  of  the 
engagements  which  bound  him  to  the  King's  enemies.*  This 
fresh  messenger  of  peace  made  great  diplomatic  preparations, 
drew  up  memoranda  and  preliminary  plans,  and,  by  the 
time  he  was  ready,  Peter  had  left  Pyrmont. 

>  St.  Petersburg,  Jan.  3,  1718  (French  Foreitrn  Office). 

'  Cologne,  1704.      This  pamphlet  t;ave  rise  to  ,1  ))nilonged  discussion  in  print. 

•  Despatches,  dated  Aug.  3  and  6,  1714  (l)ulch  State  Tapers). 

*  •  Instructions,'  d.ittd  June  18,  1716  (French  Foreign  Office). 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  365 

The  hope  of  any  understanding  seemed  as  far  off  as  ever,  but 
the  logic  of  events  ended  by  bringing  the  two  countries 
into  regular  intercourse,  and  triumphed  over  the  incon- 
sistency and  weaknesses  of  their  various  diplomats.  While, 
in  France,  the  Government  began  to  recognise  the  insuffi- 
cient value  it  had  set  on  the  new  factor  in  European  politics, 
Peter  too,  began  to  realise,  more  clearly,  the  inconveniences 
and  dangers  which  the  enterprises  he  had  so  thought- 
lessly undertaken  had  raised  about  him,  in  the  heart  of 
Germany.  Early  in  1717,  Prussia,  whose  interests  he  had 
specially  served,  threatened  to  abandon  the  over-venturous 
Sovereign.  Alarmed  at  the  attitude  taken  up  by  a  coali- 
tion which  she  had  joined,  at  the  outset,  under  prudent 
reservations, — startled  by  the  Tsar's  conferences  with  Goertz, 
which  had  come  to  her  ears,  she  thought  it  prudent  to 
ensure  her  own  safety,  by  means  of  a  Secret  Convention 
with  France,  signed  on  the  14th  of  September  17 16.  She 
accepted  the  mediation  of  the  latter  Power,  and  undertook  to 
break  off  hostilities,  in  return  for  the  surrender  of  Stettin. 
Peter  had  no  resource  left  him  but  to  follow  this  example, 
and  his  journey  to  France  was  forthwith  decided.  His 
arrival  there  was  preceded,  in  February  171 7,  by  that  of 
twenty  gentlemen,  belonging  to  the  best  Russian  families, — 
Jcrebtsof,  Volkonski,  Rimski-Korssakof,  loussoupof,  Salty- 
kof,  Poushkin,  Bezobrazof,  Bariatinski,  Bielossielski, — who 
had  received  permission  to  enter  the  King's  Garde  Marine. 
The  hour  had  come  for  Russia  and  her  Sovereign  to  make 
a  fresh  stride, — the  greatest  of  all, — in  that  intercourse 
with  the  European  world,  which  had  become  a  law  of  their 
destiny. 

Catherine  did  not  take  part  in  this  journey,  and  that 
fact,  in  itself,  indicates  its  nature  and  scope.  Peter  very 
seldom  parted  from  this  beloved  companion.  She  had 
appeared  beside  him  in  every  Court  in  Germany,  and  he 
had  never  given  a  thought  to  the  effect  her  presence  might 
produce.  He  did  not  think  fit  to  try  the  experiment  in 
Paris.  Clearly,  he  felt  that  the  new  elements  of  culture  and 
refinement  he  was  there  to  meet,  authoritatively  demanded 
a  greater  display  of  decenc)-,  and  propriety. 


366  PETER  THE  GREAT 


II 


More  than  one  difficulty  cropped  up  during  the  journey. 
Peter  reached  Dunkirk  on  the  2ist  of  April  1717,  attended 
by  fift>'-seven  persons.  This  numerous  suite  was,  at  first, 
a  somewhat  unpleasing  surprise  to  his  entertainers.  The 
Tsar  had  i^iven  out  that  he  was  travellin<^  in  the  strictest 
incof^nitn,  and  the  arrai\c[cmcnts  and  outlay  for  his  reception 
had  been  calculated  on  this  basis.  Fate  willed  that  the 
earliest  discussions  between  the  august  traveller's  ministers 
and  Monsieur  de  Liboy — the  gentleman  of  the  king's 
household  who  had  been  sent  to  receive  him — should  turn 
on  a  pitiful  question  of  money.  Would  not  his  Imperial 
Majesty^  it  was  inquired,  agree  to  receive  a  fixed  sum  for 
his  maintenance,  during  whatever  time  he  elected  to  remain 
in  France  ?  The  French  Government  was  ready  to  give  as 
much  as  I5<X)  livrcs  a  day.  The  expenses  of  hospitality 
were,  at  that  period,  always  defray^ed  in  this  manner,  in  the 
case  of  foreign  envoys  to  Russia,  so  the  proposal  in  itselt 
was  not  unbecoming.  Yet  Kourakin  made  a  great  outcry, 
which  reduced  de  Liboy  to  silence,  and  likewise  to  despair — 
for  his  credit  was  strictly  limited,  and  he  perceived  the  waste 
in  the  Tsar's  household  to  be  something  enormous.  '  The 
chief  cook,  under  pretext  of  the  two  or  three  dishes  .sent  up 
to  his  master,  every  day,  filches  the  value  of  a  table  that 
would  suffice  for  eight  people,  both  in  food  and  wine.' 
De  Liboy  tried  to  economise,  by  cutting  off  the  suppers,  but 
this  aroused  a  general  outcry  among  the  Russian  gentlemen 
and  their  servants.  And  the  suite  steadily  increased  in 
number — soon  there  were  eighty  of  them.  Fortunatel)', 
the  authorities  at  Versailles  changed  their  minds,  and 
the  Regent  sent  fresh  instructions,  which  gave  his  agent 
more  elbow-room.  Expense  was  not  to  be  considered,  so 
long  as  the  Tsar  was  pleased.  But  it  was  not  very  easy  to 
please  the  Tsar.  De  Liboy  declared  his  nature  '  betrayed 
some  seeds  of  virtue,'  but  '  of  the  wildest.'  He  rose  very 
early,  dined  towards  ten  o'clock,  took  only  a  very  light 
supper,  when  he  had  dined  heartily,  and  went  to  bed  at  nine 
o'clock  at  night.  But,  between  diimer  and  supper  time,  he 
consumed  an  extraordinary  quantity  f)f  brandy  flavoured  with 
aniseed,  beer,  wine,  fruit,  and  every  kind  of  food.  'He  al- 
ways has  two  or  three  dishes,  prepared   by  his  own  cook. 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  367 

standing  ready  to  his  hand.  He  will  leave  a  magnificently- 
ordered  table,  and  go  and  eat  in  his  own  room,  has  his  beer 
brewed  by  one  of  his  own  men,  considers  the  beer  we  give 
him  detestably  bad,  and  complains  of  ever^'thing.'  He  was 
a  Gargantua,  and  a  sulky  one  !  The  gentlemen  of  his  suite 
were  just  as  difficult  to  please,  'they  like  all  good  things, 
and  thoroughly  understand  good  cheer,'  from  which  we  may 
conclude  that  they  had  left  a  good  deal  of  their  savagery 
behind  them. 

But  the  table  arrangements  were  a  mere  trifle,  compared 
to  the  trouble  of  the  transport  service.  The  Tsar  insisted  on 
reaching  Paris  in  four  days,  which  seemed  an  impossible 
matter,  with  the  relays  at  de  Liboy's  disposal.  Kourakin 
glanced  scornfully  at  the  coaches  offered  him,  and  said,  '  No 
gentleman  had  ever  been  seen  driving  about  in  a  hearse';  he 
demanded  bcrlijies.  As  for  the  Tsar,  he  suddenly  declared 
that  nothing  should  induce  him  to  travel  either  in  a  herline 
or  a  coach  —  he  would  have  a  two-wheeled  cabriolet, 
like  those  he  was  accustomed  to  use  at  St.  Petersburg. 
No  cabriolet  was  to  be  had,  either  at  Dunkirk  or  at 
Calais,  and  when,  at  last,  the  officials  had  utterly  worn  them- 
selves out,  to  provide  what  he  wanted,  he  changed  his  mind, 
so  that  de  Liboy  was  driven  to  acknowledge,  with  bitterness, 
that  '  this  little  Court  is  very  changeable  and  irresolute,  and, 
from  the  throne  to  the  stables,  greatly  addicted  to  fits  of  bad 
temper.'  The  Tsar's  will,  and  his  plans,  varied  perpetually, 
from  one  hour  to  the  other.  There  was  no  possibility  of 
laying  out  a  programme  or  arranging  the  smallest  thing 
beforehand. 

At  Calais,  where  a  stay  of  several  days  was  made,  the 
Sovereign  grew  a  little  more  reasonable.  He  reviewed  a 
regiment,  inspected  a  fort,  went  so  far  as  to  be  present  at  a 
hunting  party  given  in  his  honour,  and  ended  by  becoming 
so  gracious,  that  de  Liboy  appears  to  have  felt  some  alarm 
for  the  virtue  of  Aladauie  La  Fresidciitc,  to  whom  the  duty 
of  doing  the  honours  of  the  town  to  the  travellers  had  been 
allotted.  But  the  question  of  transport  came  to  the  front 
again,  and  grew  so  bitter,  that  de  Liboy  thought  the  journey 
would  have  been  broken  off.  At  one  time,  nobody  knew 
how  long  the  Tsar  intended  to  stay  at  Calais,  nor  whether 
he  would  decide  to  go  any  farther.  At  that  moment — it 
already  was  the  2nd  of  Ma)- — de  Liboy  was  reinforced  by  a 


368  PETER  THE  GREAT 

notable  coadjutor,  the  Marquis  de  Mailly-Xesle.  A  story 
was  current  in  Paris,  at  the  time,  that  this  young  nobleman 
had  gone  to  meet  the  Muscovite  Sovereign,  without  any 
formal  commission  from  the  authorities,  under  pretext  of 'an 
ancient  prerogative,  which  gave  his  family  the  right  to  meet 
all  foreign  kings  who  might  enter  France  through  Picardy.* 
And  it  was  further  declared,  that,  ruined  as  he  was,  he  had 
contrived  to  borrow  looo  pistoles  so  as  to  carry  on  the  tradi- 
tion. A  correspondent  of  the  Due  de  Lorraine's,  who  re- 
peats these  stories,  adds  certain  details  which  give  curious 
proof  of  the  ideas  then  current  in  Paris  concerning  the  ex- 
pected guest.  De  Mailly,  he  declares,  endeavoured  to  enter 
the  Tsar's  coach,  wherepon  Peter  '  fell  on  him  with  his  fists, 
and  threw  him  out.'  And  on  another  occasion,  the  Muscovite 
Sovereign's  sole  reply  to  some  casual  observation  was  a 
heart)'  box  on  the  ear.^ 

The  Marquis,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  had  been  duly  and 
formally  commissioned  by  the  Regent,  and  all  the  public  en- 
tertainment at  the  young  man'sexpense,  was  pure  and  gratui- 
tous spite.  ]kit  the  part  he  was  called  upon  to  play  proved 
most  ungrateful.  He  made  a  bad  beginning,  for  he  arrived 
during  the  Russian  Master,  and  the  Tsar's  suite,  being  all  of 
them  dead  drunk,  were  quite  unable  to  offer  him  a  suitable 
reception.  The  only  person  able  to  keep  his  feet,  and  in 
something  like  his  normal  condition,  was  the  Sovereign  him- 
self 'Although,'  as  de  Liboy  tells  us,  'he  had  gone  out,  at 
eight  o'clock  in  the  evening,  incognito,  to  drink  with  his 
musicians,  who  were  living  in  a  tavern.'  But  the  tavern  and 
the  compan\'  he  found  there  had  left  him  little  inclination  to 
accept  the  Marquis'  complimentary  remarks.  Even  on  the 
following  days,  when  he  was  sober,  he  found  fault  with  him 
for  being  too  elegant.  Though  he  may  not  have  actually 
fallen  on  him  with  his  fists,  he  certainly  launched  epigrams 
at  his  head,  and  openly  expressed  his  astonishment  at  seeing 
a  man  change  his  clothes  every  day.  '  Cannot  that  young 
man  find  any  tailor  to  dress  him  to  his  fancy?'  The  Tsar's 
temper  had  changed  again,  and  for  the  worse.  He  had  indeed 
given  some  sign,  at  last,  of  desiring  to  continue  his  journey, 
but  he  had  pitched  on  a  new  style  of  locomotion.  He  would 
have  a  sort  of  litter,  on  which  the  body  of  an  old  phaeton, 

*  Sergent's  Letters,   Bibliothi^que   Nationale,    Lorraine  Collection,   vol.    574 
($6  s.  s. ). 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  369 

found  amongst  some  disused  carriages,  was  to  be  fixed. 
And  this  was  to  be  carried  by  horses.  In  vain  it  was  pointed 
out  that  he  would  endanger  his  own  neck  by  travelling  in 
this  strange  fashion,  to  which  the  horses  must  necessarily  be 
quite  unaccustomed.  'Most  men,'  writes  de  iMailly,  'are  led 
by  reason,  but  these — if  indeed  the  name  of  man  can  be  given 
to  persons  who  have  nothing  human  about  them — never 
listen  to  it'  The  litter  was  arranged  as  best  it  could  be  man- 
aged,— the  great  point  was  to  get  away.  De  Mailly  speaks 
more  strongly  even  than  de  Liboy  on  the  subject,  adding,  '  I 
do  not  know,  as  yet,  whether  the  Tsar  will  lie  at  Boulogne 
or  at  Montreuil,  but  it  is  a  great  thing  that  he  should  start 
at  all.  I  would  with  all  my  heart  he  were  safe  in  Paris, 
and  even  that  he  had  left  it.  When  his  Royal  Highness  has 
seen  him,  and  he  has  spent  several  days  in  the  city,  I  am 
persuaded,  if  I  may  dare  say  it,  that  he  will  not  be  sorry  to 
be  rid  of  him.  None  of  the  ministers,  except  Prince  Koura- 
kin,  whom  I  have  not  seen  to-day,  can  speak  French  .  .  . 
no  commentary  is  possible  on  the  strange  antics  of  the  others, 
who  are  truly  a  strange  set.'  ^ 

The  start  was  made  on  the  4th  of  May.  The  Tsar  left  his 
litter  before  entering  the  different  towns,  drove  through  them 
in  his  coaeh,  and  then  returned  to  his  chosen  mode  of  pro- 
gression. This  enabled  him  to  get  a  good  view  of  the 
country  he  passed  through.  Like  another  traveller,  fifty 
years  later,  Arthur  Young,  he  was  struck  by  the  wretched 
appearance  of  the  country  people  he  met.  IMatviciefs  im- 
pression, twelve  }-ears  earlier,  had  been  very  different ;  but 
the  last  years  of  a  ruinous  reign  had  done  their  work.- 

The  night  was  spent  at  Boulogne,  and  a  start  was  made 
the  next  day,  with  the  idea  of  sleeping  at  Amiens.  But  half 
way  thither,  the  Tsar  changed  his  mind,  and  insisted  on  going 
as  far  as  Beauvais.  It  was  pointed  out  to  him  that  there 
were  no  horses  ready.  He  replied  with  a  volley  of  abuse. 
The  lutcndaut  of  Beauvais,  M.  de  Bernage,  who  was  hastily 
warned,  made  desperate  efforts,  and  collected  the  sixty 
horses  necessary.     He  and  the  Bishop  prepared   a  supper, 

^  This  letter,  dated  May  3,  17 17,  did  not  appear  in  the  'Collected  Docu- 
ments,' relative  to  Peter's  visit  to  France,  included  in  the  thirty-fourth  volume  of 
the  great  work  published  by  the  Im])erial  Russian  Historical  Society,  which  had 
access  to  the  Records  of  the  I'Vench  Foreign  Office  :  and  this  omission  is  not  the 
only  one. 

-  Solovief,  vol.  xvii.  p.  88  ;  compare  vol.  xv.  p.  71. 


370  PETER  THE  GREAT 

and  a  concert,  in  the  Ejiiscopal  Palace,  with  illuminations 
and  fireworks.  He  adorned  the  Palace  with  the  I'sar's  arms, 
and  his  bedroom  with  portraits, — hardly,  I  should  imagine, 
very  like  the  originals, — of  former  Grand  Dukes  of  Muscovy. 
Suddenly  he  learnt  that  the  Tsar  had  entered  the  zealous 
Intoidaui's  coach,  hurried  across  the  town,  climbed  back  into 
his  litter,  and  settled  himself  some  quarter  of  a  league  off,  in 
a  snrr}'  tavern,  'where  all  he  spent  was  eighteen  francs  for  his 
own  food  and  that  of  thirty  of  his  people, — drawing  a  nap- 
kin from  his  own  pocket,  and  using  it  as  a  tablecloth,'  Poor 
de  l^ernage  was  reduced  to  making  his  wife  give  a  ball  in 
the  Bishop's  Palace,  at  which  the  guests  were  consoled  for 
the  Tsar's  absence,  b}'  the  thought  that  the  preparations 
made  for  his  reception  had  not  been  utterl\-  wasted.^ 

At  last,  on  the  evening  of  the  loth  of  Ma\-,  Peter  entered 
Paris,  escorted  by  300  mounted  Grenadiers.  He  had  been 
offered,  and  had  accepted,  the  Queen-Mother's  lodging  in 
the  Louvre,  and  there,  till  the  very  last  moment,  he  was 
expected.  Coypcl  had  received  orders  to  clean  the  paint 
and  gilding.  Sergent  tells  us  that  the  beautiful  bed-hangings 
which  '  Madame  de  Maintenon  had  caused  to  be  made  for 
the  king,  and  which  were  the  richest  and  most  magnificent 
in  the  world,  had  been  put  up.'  In  the  great  liall  of  the 
Palace,  two  tables,  each  for  sixty  persons,  had  been  prepared, 
in  the  most  magnificent  style.  As  the  Louvre  did  not  seem 
sufficiently  spacious  to  accommodate  the  whole  of  the 
Sovereign's  suite,  the  Hall  of  Assembl}-,  belonging  to  the 
French  Academy,  had  been  requisitioned  by  the  authorities. 
This  illustrious  body,  in  answer  to  the  formal  notification  of 
this  fact,  sent  by  the  Due  d'Antin,  who  had  charge  of  all 
buildings  belonging  to  the  Crown,  thanked  him  for  his 
'politeness,'  and  lost  no  time  in  removing  itself  into  the 
neighbouring  apartment,  the  Hall  of  the  Acadcmie  des 
Sciences,  where  it  remained  till  the  24th  of  ALay." 

Nevertheless,  advised  by  Count  TolstoT,  who  had  preceded 
his  master,  the  Regent  had  taken  the  precaution  of  preparing 
another,  and  less  sumptuous  lodging,  in  the  Hotel  Lesdi- 
guieres.     This  fine  house  in  the  Rue  de  la  Cerisaie,  had  been 

^  Correspondence  between  the  Bishop  of  Heauvais  .ind  tlie  Agents  of  the  Due 
d'Orlcans,  French  Foreign  Office,  Mny  17 17.  See  .nlso,  for  this  part  of  Peter's 
Journey,  Leniontey,  llistoiic  de  la  A'ri^titre  (Paris,  1S32),  vol.  i.  p.  I13. 

*  Kecords  0/ the  Fieitch  Academy,  1895,  vol.  ii.  pp.  26-29. 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  371 

built  by  Sebastian  Zamet,  and  bought  from  the  heirs  of  the 
celebrated  financier  by  Francois  de  Bonne,  Due  de  Lesdi- 
guieres.  It  belonged,  in  1717,  to  the  Marshal  de  Villeroi, 
who  himself  had  rooms  in  the  Tuileries,  and  therefore  was 
willing  and  able  to  lend  his  private  residence.  Here  too 
great  preparations  were  made  ;  the  Royal  tapestries  were 
brought  under  contribution,  and  all  the  other  houses  in  the 
street  were  taken  up,  to  provide  additional  accommodation.^ 
Peter,  with  his  unfailing  knack  of  foiling  every  expectation, 
went  first  to  the  Louvre,  entered  the  apartment  in  whi  ;h  he 
was  expected  to  sup,  glanced  carelessly  at  the  sumptuous 
preparations  made  for  his  special  behoof,  called  for  some 
radishes  and  a  piece  of  bread,  tasted  six  varieties  of  wine, 
swallowed  two  glasses  of  beer,  caused  the  numerous  candles, 
— the  profusion  of  which  offended  his  sense  of  economy, — to 
be  put  out,  and  departed.  He  had  made  up  his  mind  to 
stay  at  the  Hotel  Lesdiguieres.^ 

l^ven  here,  the  apartment  prepared  for  him  was  too  fine, 
and,  above  all,  too  spacious,  for  his  taste,  and  he  had  his 
camp  bed  placed  in  a  closet.  Fresh  tribulations  awaited 
the  persons  appointed  to  replace  de  Liboy  and  de  Mailly 
about  the  Sovereign's  person.  St.  Simon  asserts  that  he 
suggested  Marshal  de  Tesse  to  the  Regent  for  this  office,  'as 
being  a  man  who  had  nothing  else  to  do,  who  had  all  the 
habits  and  speech  of  good  society,  whose  journeys  and 
negotiations  had  accustomed  him  to  deal  with  foreigners.  .  .  . 
It  was  just  the  work  for  him.'  But  the  Tsar's  preference 
was  at  once  bestowed  on  the  person  associated  with  the 
Marshal,  a  certain  Comte  de  Verton,  Maitre  d' Hotel  to  the 
King  of  France,  '  a  sensible  fellow,  fairly  well  born,  fond  of 
good  cheer  and  high  play.'  The  Tsar  gave  worry  and 
trouble  to  both  these  functionaries. 

To  begin  with,  he  shut  himself  up  for  three  whole  days 
like  a  prisoner  within  the  hotel.  My  readers  will  imagine  his 
curiosity  as  to  the  wonderful  sights  of  the  French  Capital, 
and  the  impatience  natural  to  such  an  extraordinarily 
turbulent  and  constantly  eager  nature.  Vet  he  contained 
himself,  and  did  violence  to  his  own  feelings,  because  he 
insisted    that   the    King   should   begin   by  coming  to  him. 

^  Buvat,  Journal  de  la  l\egence   (Paris,    1865),  p.    269.     A  commemorative 
tablet  has  been  recently  affixed  to  No.  10  Rue  de  la  Cerisaie. 
'^  Sergent,  Letter,  dated  May  10,  17 17. 


372  PETER  THE  ('.RE AT 

This  pretension  was  quite  unforeseen.  On  former  occasions 
he  had  always  been  more  accommodating,  or  perhaps  more 
careless,  and  little  inclined  to  stand  on  ceremony.  At 
lierlin,  in  17 12,  he  had  gone  straight  to  the  Roj-al  Castle, 
and  found  the  King  in  his  bed.  At  Copenhagen,  in  17 16, 
he  had  literal!}'  forced  his  way  into  Charles  IV. 's  chamber, 
through  the  double  row  of  courtiers  who  had  opposed  his 
entrance,  on  account  of  the  late  hour  selected  by  him  for 
this  irruption.  But  his  behaviour  in  both  these  Capitals  had 
all  been  of  a  piece, — familiar,  cavalier,  and,  occasi(jnall)-, 
even  somewhat  improper  and  uncouth.^  He  would  aj^jiear 
to  have  taken  it  into  his  head  that  the  widest  difference 
existed  between  the  Courts  he  already  knew  so  well,  and 
that  he  now  approached  for  the  first  time.  And  he  himself 
was  quite  different, — very  much  on  his  guard,  apt  to  take 
offence,  and  rigidly  and  fastidiously  observant  of  an 
etiquette,  the  laws  of  which  he  himself  claimed  the  right  to 
dictate. 

'J  he  morning  after  his  arrival,  the  Regent  came  to  greet 
him.  He  took  a  few  steps  forward  to  meet  his  visitor, 
embraced  him,  according  to  St.  Simon,  '  with  a  great  air  of 
superiorit}','  pointed  to  the  door  of  his  cabinet,  entered  it 
first,  '  without  further  civilit)^,'  and  seated  himself  '  at  the 
upper  end.' 

This  interview,  which  lasted  an  hour,  and  during  which 
Kourakin  acted  as  interpreter,  took  place  on  the  Saturday. 
It  was  not  till  the  follovv-ing  Monday  that  the  Regent  made 
up  his  mind  to  respond  to  his  Russian  Majesty's  demand, 
and  send  the  little  King  to  visit  him.  This  time  Peter  went 
as  far  as  the  courtyard,  received  the  Royal  child  at  the  door 
of  his  coach,  and  walked  on  his  left  hand,  to  his  own  apart- 
ment, where  two  State  chairs  had  been  prepared,  that  on  the 
right  for  the  King.  Compliments  were  exchanged  for  a 
quarter  of  an  hour,  Kourakin  still  acting  as  interpreter,  and 
the  King  took  his  leave.  Then,  with  one  of  those  sudden 
impulses  which  swept  away  all  thought  of  etiquette,  and 
brought  back  his  natural  simplicity,  the  Tsar  took  hold  of 
the  child,  lifted  him  up  in  his  strong  arms,  and  kis.sed  him 
as  he  held  him.  According  to  St.  Simon,  '  The  King  was 
not  at  all  frightened,  and  got  through  the  business  very 
well.'     Peter  wrote  to  his  wife,  '  I  give  }'ou  notice  that,  last 

'   Sbornik,  vol.  xx.  jip.  57-63. 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  373 

Monday,  I  received  a  visit  from  the  little  King  of  this 
country,  who  is  a  very  little  taller  than  our  Lucas '  (a 
favourite  dwarf)  ;  '  the  child  is  exceedingly  charming,  both 
in  face  and  figure,  and  fairly  intelligent  for  his  age.' 

The  visit  was  returned  the  next  da}',  with  the  same 
ceremonies,  all  of  which  had  been  minutely  discussed  and 
arranged  beforehand.  Then  the  Tsar  felt  free  to  go  and 
come.  He  took  full  advantage  of  his  freedom,  and  forth- 
with began  to  go  about  the  town  as  a  private  tourist,  and  in 
the  simplest  dress.  He  wore,  according  to  15uvat,  '  a  quite 
plain  overcoat  of  rather  coarse  grey  barracan,  a  waistcoat  of 
grey  woollen  stuff  with  diamond  buttons,  no  cravat,  no  cuffs, 
and  no  lace  on  the  wristbands  of  his  shirt.'  To  this  was 
added  '  a  black  wig  in  the  Spanish  fashion,  the  back  of 
which  he  had  caused  to  be  clipped,  because  he  thought  it  too 
long,  and  without  any  powder  .  .  .  His  overcoat  had  a 
small  cape,  like  that  of  any  ordinary  traveller  .  .  .  and  round 
his  waist,  outside  the  overcoat,  was  a  silver  laced  belt,  on 
which  hung  a  cutlass,  after  the  manner  of  the  East.'  This 
style  of  dress  was  the  fashion  in  Paris,  for  a  time,  after  the 
Sovereign's  departure,  and  was  called  '  habit  du  Tsar,'  or 
du  Farouche.'  Peter  inspected  public  institutions,  and 
went  about  in  the  shops,  striking  every  one  who  had  to  do 
v.ith  him  by  the  familiarity  of  his  manners,  which,  neverthe- 
less, had  a  certain  touch  of  grandeur  about  them, — the 
suddenness  of  his  movements, — his  insatiable  curiosity, — his 
uncertain  temper, — his  complete  absence  of  shyness, — and 
his  extreme  stinginess.  He  frequently  went  out  without 
informing  anybody  about  him,  would  get  into  the  first  coach 
he  came  across,  and  have  himself  driven  whithersoever  his 
fancy  listed.  Thus  one  day,  when  Madame  de  Matignon 
had  driven  up  close  to  the  Hotel  Lesdiguieres,  '  to  gape,'  as 
St.  Simon  puts  it,  he  carried  off  her  coach  to  Boulogne,  and 
she  was  obliged  to  go  home  on  foot.  De  Tesse,  poor  man, 
spent  his  life  running  after  the  Sovereign,  and  never  knew 
where  to  find  him. 

On  the  14th  of  May,  Peter  went  to  the  Opera,  where  the 
Regent  did  him  the  honours  of  the  Royal  box.  During  the 
course  of  the  performance  he  asked  for  some  beer,  and 
aj)peared  to  think  it  quite  natural  that  the  Regent  should 
offer  it  to  him,  standing,  with  the  salver  in  his  hand.  He 
took  his  time  about  emptying  the  glass,  asked  for  a  napkin 


374  PETER  THE  GREAT 

when  he  had  drunk,  and  received  it  with  '  a  civil  smile  and  a 
slight  inclination  of  his  head.'  The  public,  according  to  St. 
Simon,  was  more  than  a  little  astonished  at  the  sight.  The 
next  da\',  the  Tsar  climbed  into  a  hack  coach,  inspected 
various  workshops,  went  to  the  Gobelins,  plied  the  workmen 
with  questions,  and  left  a  single  crown  amongst  them  when 
he  went  away.  On  the  19th  of  May,  he  gave  25  sols,  to  the 
turncock  at  the  Menagerie  ;  he  paid  ready  money  to  the 
tradesmen  who  crowded  his  house,  but  he  was  a  hard 
bargainer,  and  after  having,  as  we  have  seen,  maltreated  a 
splendid  wig,  made  by  the  greatest  hairdresser  in  J^iris,  he 
gave  the  artist  7  livres  and  10  sols.,  for  what  was  worth  at 
least  five-and-twenty  crowns  !  ^ 

He  showed  not  the  slightest  regard  for  the  rank  and 
precedence  of  other  people  :  took  no  more  notice,  as  St. 
Simon  says  again,  of  the  Prince  and  Princesses  of  the  Blood, 
than  of  the  chief  nobles  of  the  Court,  and  jjaid  the  former  no 
more  respect  than  the  latter.  When  the  Princes  refused  to 
wait  on  him,  until  they  were  sure  he  would  return  the 
civility  to  the  Princesses,  he  sent  them  word  they  might 
stay  at  home.  The  Duchesses  de  Berry  and  d'Orleans  sent 
their  equerries  to  pay  him  their  compliments,  and  he 
condescended  to  visit  these  two  ladies  at  the  Luxembourg 
and  the  Palais  Royal,  but  still  '  with  an  air  of  great  superior- 
ity.' The  other  Princesses  only  saw  him  as  sightseers,  and 
from  a  distance.  The  Comte  de  Toulouse  was  the  only  one 
of  the  Princes  who  was  presented  to  him^  and  this  only 
when  he  received  him  at  P'ontainebleau  as  Master  of  the 
Royal  Hounds.  The  Due  du  Maine  appeared  at  the  head 
of  the  Swiss  Guard,  and  the  I'rince  de  Soubise  commanded 
the  Gendarmes,  at  a  Review  to  which  the  Tsar  was  invited, 
and  at  which  3000  coaches,  filled  with  sightseers,  male  and 
female,  surrounded  the  parade  ground.  But  he  did  not  offer 
the  slightest  civility,  either  to  them  or  to  any  of  the  officers 
present. 

On  the  21st  of  May,  he  went  to  see  Pajot  d'Onsen  Bray, 
the  Director  of  the  Posts,  at  Grand  Bcrc}',  and  spent  his  day 
inspecting  his  curious  collections,  accompanied  by  the 
celebrated  Pere  Sebastien,  a  gifted  ph}-sician  and  mechanic, 
whose  real  name  was  Jean  Truchet.  lie  showed  all  kintis 
of  attentions  to  Carme,  a  Savant,  but  wlicn  the  Duchesse  de 

'  Scrgent,  Lclter  of  igtli  Juno  1717. 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  375 

Rohan,  who  Happened  to  be  at  her  house  at  Petit  Bercy, 
w^aited  upon  him,  she  retired  utterly  disconnfited,  and 
complained  to  her  husband  that  the  Tsar  had  not  treated 
her  with  the  slightest  civility,  '  And  why,  Madame,'  replied 
the  Duke — (loud  enough  to  be  heard  by  one  of  the  Russian 
gentlemen,  who  happened  to  understand  French,  and 
retorted  very  sharply) — '  Did  you  dream  of  expecting  any 
civility  from  that  brute  ? '  ^ 

St.  Simon  saw  the  Sovereign  in  the  house  of  the  Due 
d'Antin,  and  watched  him  at  his  leisure,  having  specially 
requested  not  to  be  presented  to  him.  He  struck  him  as 
being  '  rather  talkative,  but  with  the  air  of  considering  him- 
self the  master  everywhere.'  He  remarked  the  nervous  con- 
vulsion which  suddenly  contracted  his  features,  completely 
altering  their  expression.  De  Tesse  told  him  that  this 
would  happen  several  times  a  day.  The  Duchesse  d'Antin 
and  her  daughters  were  present  at  the  festivity,  but  the  Tsar 
*  walked  past  them  proudly,'  with  a  mere  bend  of  his  head. 
An  excellent  picture  of  the  Tsarina,  which  d'Antin  had  con- 
trived to  procure,  and  which  he  had  hung  over  one  of  the 
chimney-pieces,  pleased  Peter  greatly.  He  spoke  very 
politely  on  the  subject,  and  his  lack  of  courtesy  would  really 
appear  to  have  been  some  remnant  of  timidity  and  shyness, 
for  he  certainly  improved,  by  degrees,  in  this  respect.  To- 
wards the  end  of  his  stay,  he  went  from  house  to  house, 
accepting  all  invitations,  and  ended  by  behaving  delightfully 
even  to  the  ladies.  At  St.  Ouen,  where  he  went  to  visit 
the  Due  de  Tresmes,  and  where  a  great  number  of  fair  sight- 
seers were  assembled,  he  forgot  his  pride,  and  took  pains  to 
make  himself  pleasant.  One  of  the  lady  guests,  his  host's 
daughter,  the  Marquise  de  Bethune,  was  presented  to  him, 
and  he  invited  her  to  sit  at  table  with  him.  Paris  had  ended 
by  civilising  the  Tsar. 

Whatever  may  be  said  to  the  contrary,  he  was  fairly  well 
behaved,  if  not  over-gallant,  when  he  went  to  see  Madame 
de  Maintenon  at  St.  Cyr.  St.  Simon's  description  of  this 
visit,  which  has  been  so  frequently  repeated,  is  universally 
known.  According  to  him,  the  Tsar  burst  unexpectedly 
into  the  lady's  apartment,  and  subjected  her  to  a  silent  and 
even  brutal  scrutiny.  Auger,  in  the  biography  which  he  has 
added  to  Madame  de  Maintenon's  letters,  published  by 
^  Sergent,  LeUcr,  dated  May  29,  17 17. 


376  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Santreau  de  Marsy,  confirms  these  details,  and  even  declares 
that  the  Tsar's  unseemly  curiosity  extended  to  the  niece  of 
the  lady  who  had  been  the  great  King's  wife.  'He  noticed 
her  (Madame  de  Caylus)  one  day  at  a  festive  gathering,  and, 
learning  who  she  was,  he  went  straight  to  her,  took  her  b\'  the 
hand,  and  looked  at  her  long  and  intently.'^  The  most 
unlikely  legends  need  not  surprise  any  historian,  but  it  is 
somewhat  astonishing  that  Auger  does  not  appear  to  have 
read  the  following  letter  from  Madame  de  Maintenon,  which 
is  included  in  the  collection  to  which  his  biography  of  her 
is  affixed.  The  letter  in  question  is  addressed  to  Madame 
de  Caylus.  '  M.  Gabriel  has  just  come  in,  and  told  me 
that  M.  Bellegarde  gives  me  notice  that  he  (that  is  to 
say,  the  Tsar)  desires  to  come  here  after  dinner,  if  I 
will  permit  it.  I  dare  not  refuse,  and  shall  await  him 
in  my  bed.  I  have  been  told  nothing  more.  I  do  not 
know  whether  I  am  to  give  him  a  ceremonious  recep- 
tion, whether  he  desires  to  see  the  house  and  the  young 
ladies,  whether  he  will  go  into  the  choir.  I  am  leaving 
everything  to  chance.  .  .  .  The  Tsar  arrived  at  seven  o'clock 
in  the  evening,  he  seated  himself  beside  my  bed,  and  asked 
me  if  I  was  ill.  I  replied  that  I  was.  He  then  caused 
me  to  be  asked  what  was  the  matter  with  me.  I  answered, 
"great  age,  and  a  somewhat  weak  constitution."  He  did  not 
know  what  to  say  to  me,  and  his  interpreter  did  not  appear 
to  hear  what  I  said  to  him.  His  visit  was  very  short.  He 
is  still  in  the  house,  but  where,  I  know  not.  He  caused  the 
curtains  at  the  foot  of  my  bed  to  be  opened,  so  that  he  might 
look  at  me  ;  you  may  imagine  I  gave  him  his  way  ! '  ^ 

On  the  I  ith  of  June,  the  date  of  this  interview,  and  after 
a  month  in  Paris,  Peter  was  no  longer  the  extraordinary 
person  he  has  been  described  as  having  been  on  this  occasion. 
But  he  still  felt  more  at  ease,  when  far  from  the  elegance  and 
ceremony  of  Courts  and  drawing-rooms.  He  was  quite 
happy,  for  instance,  at  the  Invalides,  where  he  treated  the 
pensioners  in  the  most  friendly  manner,  tasted  their  .soup, 
and    patted    them    familiarly  on  the   back.     At  the  Mint, 

^  I.  ccx.xxvi. 

^  June  II,  1717,  vol.  V.  p.  205.  .See  also,  for  confirmation,  the  Memoirs  of 
Mame.  de  Cie'/uy,  niece  of  Marshal  de  Tesse  (vol.  ii.  p.  9).  But  these  memoirs 
are  of  somewhat  d<nil)iful  authenticity.  Danyeau  (vol.  xviii.  pp.  loi  and  104) 
declares  every  detail  of  the  Tsar's  visit  to  St.  Cyr  was  discussed  and  arranged 
beforehand. 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  377 

where  he  saw  a  medal  struck  to  commemorate  his  stay  in 
France ;  at  the  Royal  Printing  works  ;  at  the  College  des 
Quatre  Nations  ;  at  the  Sorbonne — where  advantage  was 
taken  of  his  presence  to  discuss  the  reunion  of  the  Greek  and 
Latin  Churches  ; — at  the  Observatory  ; — at  the  house  of 
Delisle,  the  geographer,  and  that  of  the  great  English 
oculist,  Woolhouse,  who  performed  an  operation  for  cataract 
in  his  presence,  he  struck  observers  as  being  too  nervously 
and  strangely  curious,  perhaps,  but  full  of  intelligence,  greedy 
of  knowledge,  and  not  altogether  discourteous.  He  replied 
politely  and  modestly  to  the  doctors  of  the  Sorbonne,  that 
he  knew  too  little  about  the  matter  they  discussed  to  speak 
of  it,  being  more  than  occupied  with  the  task  of  ruling  his 
Empire,  and  bringing  his  war  with  Sweden  to  a  close.  But 
that  he  should  be  glad  to  see  them  enter  into  correspondence 
with  the  bishops  of  his  Church.  He  graciously  received  the 
memorandum  finally  remitted  to  him  on  the  subject,  to  which, 
some  three  years  later,  the  Russian  clergy  sent  a  curious 
reply,  beginning  with  a  paneg}-ric  on  the  Sorbonne,  and  end- 
ing with  an  acknowledgment  of  their  own  impotence.  The 
Russian  Church,  maimed  by  the  suppression  of  the  Patri- 
archate (one  of  Peter's  reforms),  was  quite  incapable  of 
taking  part  in  such  a  discussion.^ 

Art  was  less  attractive  to  the  Russian  Sovereign.  When 
he  was  shown  the  Crown  jewels  in  the  Louvre,  valued  at 
30.000,000,  he  pulled  a  wry  face  ;  the  mone}-,  in  his  opinion, 
might  have  been  better  spent.  When  Marshal  de  Villeroi, 
who  superintended  this  exhibition,  suggested  that  a  visit 
should  be  paid  to  '  the  greatest  treasure  in  France,'  the  Tsar 
had  some  difficulty  in  realising  that  the  treasure  referred  to 
was  the  little  king.^ 

It  was  not  till  the  19th  of  June,  on  the  eve  of  his  depar- 
ture, that  he  went  to  the  Institute.  No  warning  having  been 
sent  to  the  Academy  of  France,  onl)'  two  or  three  of  the 
members  were  present  to  receive  him.  The)'  showed  him 
nothing  but  their  Hall  of  Assembly,  which  fiad  been  prepared 
as  a  dormitory  for  some  of  his  own  officers,  explained  the 

^  This  reply,  which  was  drawn  up  by  the  head  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  patty 
in  Russia,  Iavt)rski,  reaclu-d  its  destination  through  an  indirect  channel.  I'eter 
had  already  forwarded  other  objections,  put  into  oflicial  shape  by  Prokopovitch, 
who  had  assisted  the  I  sar's  reforming  work  in  Church  matters.  See  P.  Pierling, 
The  Sorbonne  and  Russia  (1S63),  p.  50,  etc. 

'  Sergent,  May  29th,  1717. 


378  PETER  THE  GREAT 

natureof  their  deliberations,  and  exhibited  their  picture  of  the 
King.  He  was  better  treated  at  tiie  Acadcmie  des  Sciences, 
where  all  the  members  were  assembled,  not,  I  suspect,  with- 
out some  complicity  on  Peter's  part.  The  curiosities  of  the 
Dictionar\'  of  the  Academy  cannot  have  had  much  charm 
for  him,  but  at  the  Academic  des  Sciences,  he  saw  M.  la 
I-'aj'c's  machine  for  raising  water  ;  M.  Lemery's  *  Arbre  de 
Mars,'  the  screw-jack  invented  by  M.  Delesse  ;  and  M.  Le 
Camus'  coach, — and  thanked  the  company  for  his  reception, 
in  a  letter  written  in  Russian.^ 

He  was  present  on  the  same  day,  in  a  private  galler}%  at  a 
sitting  of  the  Parliament,  held  in  full-dress,  and  great  cere- 
mony. The  Due  do  Maine  and  the  Comte  de  Toulouse 
were  prevented  by  his  presence  from  bringing  forward  their 
protest  against  the  decision  of  the  Regency,  as  to  the  rights 
they  claimed.^ 

It  was  a  full,  almost  an  overwhelming  programme,  but 
Peter, — though  he  took  every  advantage  of  it,  observing 
everything,  putting  endless  questions,  and  cramming  his 
note-book,  which  he  opened  perpetually  and  unconcernedly 
wherever  he  might  chance  to  be,  at  the  Louvre,  at  church, 
or  in  the  street, — did  not  deny  himself  any  of  the  pleasures, 
extravagances,  and  excesses  to  which  he  was  addicted.  And 
here  the  worst  side  of  his  visit  to  Paris  appears.  At  the 
Trianon  he  astonished  French  society  by  turning  the  water 
of  the  fountains  on  to  the  onlookers  for  his  own  amusement. 
But  at  Marly  he  did  not  content  himself  with  such  undigni- 
fied pranks.  This  was  the  place  chosen  by  him,  so  a  con- 
temporary relates,  *  to  shut  himself  up  with  a  mistress  whom 
he  has  taken  here,  and  with  whom  ...  in  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon's  a[)artment.'  He  then  dismissed  the  girl  with  a  couple 
of  crowns,  and  boasted  of  his  performance  in  presence  of  the 
Due  d'Orleans  in  terms  which  the  above-mentioned  contem- 
porary only  ventures  to  reproduce  in  Latin.  Dixit  ei se  saliita- 
visse  quenidani  ineretriceui  dccies  nocte  in  una,  et,  Jiuic  datis  pro 
tanto  labore  tantibn  diiobus  numniis,  tunc  illam  exdamavisse: 
Sane,  Doniine,  tit  vir  viagnificc,  sed  parcissinic  ut  inipcrator 
meciini  cgisti?  The  news  of  the  orgies  with  which  he  dis- 
graced the  royal  residences  reached  Madame  de  Maintenon's 

'  Bulletin  du  Bibliof>hile  {1859),  p.  61 1,  etc. 
2  Mamis'  Memoirs  (Paris,  1865),  vol.  i.  \>.  207. 
*  Louville's  Memoirs  (I'aris,  iSiS),  vol.  ii.  p.  24I. 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  379 

ears  in  her  retreat,  and  she  wrote  of  them  to  her  niece  :  '  I 
have  just  heard  that  the  Tsar  takes  a  low  mistress  about 
with  him,  to  the  great  scandal  of  Versailles,  of  the  Trianon, 
and  of  Marly.' ^  At  the  Trianon  he  had  to  be  attended  by 
the  Paris  doctors  ;  at  Fontainebleau  he  seems  to  have  shown 
little  interest  in  the  coursing,  but  he  supped  so  freely  that 
the  Due  d'Antin  thought  it  prudent,  on  the  return  journey, 
to  slip  away  from  him,  and  get  into  another  carriage,  which 
action,  according  to  St.  Simon,  was  justified  by  the  event,  for 
at  Petit  Bourg,  where  the  Tsar  stopped  for  the  night,  two 
country  women  were  sent  for,  to  clean  up  his  Majesty  ! 

The  general  impression,  influenced  by  incidents  of  this 
nature, — exaggerated,  doubtless,  in  the  telling, — was  some- 
what doubtful,  but  rather  unfavourable  than  otherwise.  '  I 
remember  hearing  from  Cardinal  Dubois,'  writes  Voltaire, 
'  that  the  Tsar  was  nothing  but  a  wild  fellow,  born  to  be 
boatswain  of  a  Dutch  ship.'-  This  was  much  the  same 
opinion  as  that  of  Burnet,  twenty  years  previously,  during 
Peter's  visit  to  London.  St.  bimon  himself, — so  decided 
otherwise  in  praise  or  blame, — seems  doubtful  on  the  subject. 
The  famous  '  Memoirs '  contradict  the  '  Additions  to  Dan- 
geau's  Journal'  The  '  Memoirs,'  being  the  more  spontaneous, 
strike  me  as  being  also  more  sincere,  and  they  are  certainly 
far  from  laudatory.  Even  in  the  '  Additions,'  which  are 
more  conventional  and  affected,  I  find  mention  of  '  indecent 
orgies '  and  of  '  a  strong  tinge  of  ancient  barbarism.'  ^ 

When  Peter  took  leave  of  the  King,  he  would  accept  no 
gift  but  two  splendid  Gobelins  hangings.  He  refused,  for 
some  reason  of  etiquette,  'a  sword  splendidly  mounted  with 
diamonds,'  and  he  gave  the  lie,  in  the  most  unexpected 
fashion,  to  those  stingy  habits  which  had  so  largely  contri- 
buted to  make  him  unpopular  in  the  capital.  I  read  in  a 
letter  from  Sergent,  '  The  Tsar,  who  has  been  so  much  re- 
proached, during  his  stay  here,  for  his  lack  of  generosity,  gave 
most  brilliant  proof  of  it  on  the  day  of  his  departure.  He 
left  50,000  lizn-es  to  be  distributed  amongst  the  officers  who 
have  served  his  table  since  he  entered  France  ;  30,000  livres 
for  his  guard  ;  30,000  livres  to  be  divided  among  the  Royal 
manufactories  and  workshops  which  he  went  tosce  ;  his  por- 

^  Letter  quoted  above. 

"  LeUer  to  Chauvelin,  Oct.  3,  1760,  General  Correspomhnce,  vol.  xii.  p.  123. 

'  Dangeau,  vol.  xvi'.  p.  81. 


38o  PETER  THE  GREAT 

trait,  set  in  diamonds,  for  the  Kinp^,  another  for  Marshal  dc 
Tesse.  another  for  the  Due  d'Antin,  another  for  Marshal 
d'Estrees,  another  for  M.  de  Livry,  and  another,  worth  6000 
livres,  to  the  King's  Mcxitre  cV Hotel  \\\\o  attended  him.  He 
has  also  distributed  a  great  number  of  gold  and  silver  meiials, 
bearing  the  principal  actions  of  his  life,  and  incidents  of  his 
battles.' 

Thus,  having  never  lost  an  occasion  of  showing  off  his 
whims  and  freaks  of  temper,  he  ended  by  paying  his  score 
right  rojally.  The  shabby  gratuities  distributed  during  his 
stay  were  bestowed  by  the  private  individual  he  professed 
to  be,  even  though,  from  time  to  time,  the  incognito  was  cast 
aside.  At  the  moment  of  departure,  the  Sovereign  allowed 
his  true  personality  to  appear. 

In  Paris,  as  we  have  seen,  his  incognito  was  never  taken 
seriously,  and,  from  first  to  last,  he  was  given  Royal 
honours.  All  along  the  road  to  Spa,  where  Catherine  awaited 
him,  the  Provinces  vied  with  the  Capital  in  gorgeous  hospi- 
tality. At  Rheims,  where  Peter  only  spent  a  couple  of  hours, 
and  looked  at  nothing  but  the  famous  'shaking  pillar' 
in  the  Church  of  St.  Nicaise,  the  Municipality  spent  455 
livres  and  13  sols  on  the  collation  offered  to  him.  It  cost 
the  town  of  Charleville  4327  livres  to  entertain  the  Sovereign 
for  one  night  There  a  richly-decorated  barge,  adorned  with 
his  colours,  waited  to  carry  him  by  the  Meuse  to  Liege, 
and  a  whole  cargo  of  provisions  was  shipped — 170  lbs.  of 
meat  at  5  sols  a  lb.,  i  roe  deer,  35  chickens  or  capons,  6  large 
turkeys  at  30  sols  each,  83  lbs.  of  Mayence  ham  at  10  sols, 
200  cray-fish,  200  eggs  at  30  sols  a  100,  i  fifteen-pound 
salmon  at  25  sols,  2  large  trout,  and  3  casks  of  beer.^ 

The  Regent,  on  his  i)art,  pushed  his  courtes}-  so  far  as  to 
desire  Rigaud  and  Nattier  to  paint  him  two  portraits  of  the 
Russian  Sovereign. 

Let  us  now  proceed  to  examine  the  practical  results  of 
this  first  and  last  appearance  of  the  victor  of  Poltava,  amidst 
the  declining  splendours  of  the  Prcnch  Monarchy, 

III 

Two  stumbling-blocks  stood  in  the  way  of  the  political 
and  commercial  alliance  which  Peter  had  hoped  to  secure  b\' 

'  Archives    of   the    town    of   Chalons.       See    Revue    Contemporaine,    1865 
(Barth^lemy). 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  381 

his  visit  to  Paris  ; — the  Treaty,  signed  in  April  171 5,  which 
bound  France  to  Sweden  until  17 18,  and  ensured  the  latter 
country  a  quarterly  subsidy  of  150,000  crowns;  and  the 
personal  ties  existing  between  the  Regent  and  the  King 
of  England,  r^egotiations  were  opened  as  soon  as  the  Tsar 
arrived,  but  Marshal  de  Tesse, — to  whom  they  were  confided, 
in  conjunction  with  Marshal  d'Uxelles, — soon  perceived  that 
the  only  object  of  his  own  Government  was  '  to  dance  on  the 
slack  rope,'  thus  amusing  the  Russian  Sovereign  until  his 
departure  ;^  while,  at  the  same  time,  English  Statesmen  being 
kept  on  the  alert,  the  friendship  of  England  was  to  be 
secured,  and  Sweden,  tamed  by  the  prospect  of  a  French 
understanding  with  the  Tsar,  was  to  be  rendered  yet  more 
manageable.  In  vain  did  Peter  boldly  and  frankly  take  the 
initiative.  He  straightforward!}'  offered  to  replace  Sweden 
in  that  system  of  alliances  which  had,  hitherto,  guaranteed  the 
balance  of  power  in  Europe.  He  would  follow  that  country's 
example,  make  'diversions,'  and  accept  subsidies.  So  far, 
so  good.  But  figures  had  to  be  discussed,  and  on  this  pre- 
liminary point  the  agreement  dragged  for  weeks.  When 
that  was  settled,  Prussia  demanded,  through  Baron  de  Cnyp- 
hausen,  her  Minister  in  Paris,  to  be  included  in  the  Treat)'. 
This  again  was  very  welcome.  France  and  Russia  under- 
took to  guarantee  her  the  possession  of  Stettin,  but  it  became 
necessary  to  alter  the  prearranged  form  of  the  projected  alli- 
ance. Peter  stirred  up  his  plenipotentiaries  and  his  secre- 
taries, and  the  Regent,  having  private  information  from 
Berlin  which  set  his  mind  complete!}^  at  rest  regarding  this 
vast  expenditure  of  ink,  let  him  work  his  will.  When  the 
Treaty  had  been  duly  drawn  up,  and  only  awaited  signature, 
it  became  evident  that  the  whole  labour  had  been  in  vain, 
for  Cnyphausen  had  no  powers  from  his  Government.  And 
the  Tsar  was  forced  to  depart  empty-handed. 

The  Regent  laughed  at  the  Muscovite  Sovereign,  but  De 
Tesse  was  not  free  from  anxiety  as  to  the  possible  and  more 
distant  result  of  Peter's  discomfiture.  Might  not  the  Tsar, 
mortified  and  discouraged,  be  driven  to  throw  himself  into 
the  Emperor's  arms,  or  to  treat  directly  with  Sweden  ?  But 
no !  Prussia,  the  only  strong  footing  left  him  in  all  German)-, 
held  him  firmly.  A  meeting  at  Amsterdam,  to  recommence 
negotiations,  was  brought  about  the  following  month,  at  the 
'  l)c  Iciscs  Memoirs  (Paris,  1806),  vol.  ii.,  p.  319, 


382  PETER  THE  GREAT 

prcssinjT  instance  of  the  Tsar.  The  Regent  agreed,  but  his 
resolution  not  to  take  any  serious  action  was  unshaken,  and 
all  he  did  was  to  change  his  tactics.  Cnyphausen  had  been 
provided,  b\'  this  time,  with  full  powers,  but  the  pretensions 
of  France  had  suddenly  altered.  When,  on  the  2nd  of  ^cp- 
tember,  and  largely  owing  to  the  eagerness  of  the  Tsar,  a 
new  Treaty  was  drawn  up,  duly  provided  with  'public'  and 
with  'secret'  articles — as  was  only  pro[)er  in  the  case  of  a 
diplomatic  document  fresh  from  the  hands  of  the  represen- 
tatives of  three  great  Powers — another  matter  was  arranged 
— a  platonic  hope  and  desideratum.  According  to  the 
public  articles,  the  mediation  of  the  King  of  France  for 
peace  in  the  North  was  acccjited,  but  subject  to  the  definite 
rupture  of  the  engagements  absolutely  binding  his  Mf)st 
Christian  Majesty  to  Sweden.  The  secret  articles  stipulated 
for  a  defensive  alliance,  on  the  basis  of  the  Treaties  of  Baden 
and  Utrecht ;  but  any  definition  of  the  reciprocal  duties  of 
the  allied  Powers,  resulting  from  it,  was  deferred  to  some 
future  negotiation,  France  did  indeed  undertake  not  to  re- 
new her  Treaty  of  Subsidies  with  Sweden,  at  its  expiration, 
but  this  undertaking  was  merely  verbal.  The  King's  pleni- 
potentiaries had  so  insisted  on  this  point  that  Peter  mis- 
trusted them  :  and  the  event  proved  him  right. 

Nothing  was  done,  in  fact.  There  was  not  even  a  begin- 
ning of  diplomatic  relations  between  the  two  countries.  The 
individuals  selected  to  represent  each  side  were,  moreover, 
most  unfortunately  chosen.  Peter  had  expressed  a  desire 
to  see  M.  de  Verton,  whose  character  and  qualities  pleased 
him,  as  PVench  Envoy  at  St.  Petersburg.  M.  de  Verton  was 
duly  appointed,  received  his  instructions,  and  was  on  the 
point  of  starting,  when  he  was  arrested  and  thrown  into 
prison  by  his  creditors.  The  representation  of  French  in- 
terests on  the  banks  of  the  Neva  remained  in  the  hands  of 
La  Vie,  who  could  hardly  pay  the  postage  of  his  letters. 
Russia,  too,  was  represented  in  Paris  by  Baron  von  Schlcinitz, 
whose  experiences  were  no  less  unpleasant. 

The  emptiness  of  the  Treat}-  of  the  2nd  of  September  soon 
became  apparent.  In  the  following  year,  1718, — while  Schlci- 
nitz was  ccjnferring  wilh  Cellamare,  — France,  with  England, 
Holland  and  the  hjnperor,  entered  into  quadruple  alliance 
against  Spain,  and  the  four  allies  vowed  each  other  mutual 
support  until  the  end  of  the   Northern  war.     The  Comte  de 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  383 

Rotembourg,  French  Envoy  at  Berlin,  was  labourin(T  to  con- 
clude a  Treaty  between  Prussia  and  Kngland,  which  was  to 
end  in  a  separate  peace  between  Prussia  and  Sweden,  in  re- 
turn for  the  surrender  of  Stettin.  Meanwhile,  at  Stockholm, 
Campredon  was  quietly  negotiating  for  the  renewal  of  the 
Treaty  of  171 5  ! 

Thus  Russia  and  France  were  in  open  opposition.  Both 
countries,  it  is  true,  shrank  from  any  idea  of  declared 
hostilities.  Each  acted  cautiously,  and  there  was  even  a 
certain  exchange  of  civilities.  Peter's  eyes  were  turned  on 
Constantinople,  where  the  Emperor's  Envoy  was  soliciting 
the  Turk's  alliance  against  Russia,  and  the  Kegent,  on  his 
side,  aware  of  the  possibility  that  Goertz's  plan  might  be 
realised  independently  of  France,  authorised  De  Bonac,  who 
had  great  influence  at  the  Porte,  to  stand  by  Prince  Dashkof, 
The  Tsar  begged  the  King  to  stand  godfather  to  his 
daughter  Nathalia,  and  the  Regent  replied  to  this  courtesy 
by  assuring  Schleinitz  that  Campredon  should  be  disowned. 
But  the  discovery  of  Cellamare's  conspiracy,  and  of  the 
letters  of  Schleinitz,  amongst  the  imprudent  Minister's 
papers,  threw  more  cold  water  on  the  Russo- French  rela- 
tions. And  the  Regent's  indignation  at  the  complicity  of 
the  Russian  Minister — offensive  enough,  in  all  good  truth — 
was  likely  to  be  increased  by  the  fact  that  all  fear  of  Goertz 
was  now  a  thing  of  the  past.  The  headsman  had  settled  his 
account.  But  the  Tsar's  conciliatory  attitude,  and  an  early 
peace  with  Spain,  gradually  brought  things  back  to  their 
former  condition.  Peter  had  set  his  heart  on  emerging  from 
his  state  of  isolation,  and,  in  January  1720,  Schleinitz  was 
again  at  work,  bombarding  the  Regent  with  requests  for 
F"rcnch  mediation.  All  he  claimed  was  a  written  declaration 
that  the  King  was  bound  by  no  engagement  incompatible 
with  the  impartiality  indispensable  to  a  mediator.  But  the 
Due  d'Orlcans  took  a  high  stand  :  declaring  he  had  already 
said  Campredon  was  disowned,  and  that  his  word  was  worth 
all  the  documents  in  the  world.  The  Tsar  gave  in  at  last, 
on  every  point,  even  on  the  association  of  England  with 
P^rance  in  the  matter  of  mediation,  although  he  had  consider- 
able grievances  against  the  former  country.^ 

This  prompt  agreement  and  obsequiousness  had  their  real 

'  Letter  from  ihe  T.>ar  to  the  Due  d'Orlcans,  May  29,  1720  (Paris  Foreign 
Office). 


384  PETER  THE  GREAT 

foundation  in  another  reason — a  secret  one,  which  was  to 
sway  the  policy  of  the  Russian  ruler  in  all  his  future 
negotiations  with  the  Regent  and  with  France.  In  July 
17 19,  poor  La  Vie  made  a  heroic  effort  to  send  a  special 
desj^atch  to  Paris,  with  a  sensational  piece  of  intelligence. 
The  Tsar  had  taken  it  into  his  head  to  marry  his  second 
daughter — '  very  handsome  and  well  proportioned,  and  who 
would  be  taken  to  be  a  perfect  beauty,  if  the  colour  of  her 
hair  were  not  a  little  too  fiery' — to  the  young  King  of  France. 
The  Lad}'  in  question  was  the  Princess  Elizabeth.  Peter  at 
first  thought  of  finding  lier  a  husband  in  the  person  of  the 
King  of  PLngland's  grandson.^  When  this  request  was 
denied,  he  turned,  with  all  his  usual  swiftness  and  eagerness, 
to  the  idea  of  a  French  alliance.  But,  once  again,  his  Diplo- 
matic representative  in  Paris  failed  him.  Hardly  had 
Schlcinitz  emerged  from  the  unpleasant  predicament  into 
which  his  intercourse  with  Cellamare  had  brought  him, 
before  he  found  himself  accused,  by  the  Regent,  of  having 
betra)ed  the  secret  of  the  negotiations  in  which  he  had 
taken  part.  The  F"rench  Government  refused  to  treat  with 
him.  He  was  recalled,  but  was  unable  to  return,  being 
detained,  like  de  Verton,  by  his  creditors,  and  all  his  fortune 
having  disappeared  in  Law's  speculations,  he  was  soon 
reduced  'to  the  last  extremity  of  misery.'-  Peter  was 
obliged  to  fall  back  on  La  Vie's  good  offices,  but  the 
wretched  commercial  agent's  communications  were  but 
coldly  received  at  Versailles.  The  Tsar,  it  was  replied, 
would  have  to  begin  by  making  his  peace  with  Sweden. 
The  Tsar  was  willing  enough,  and,  to  that  end,  accepted  the 
assistance  of  Campredon,  who  spent  the  Spring  of  1721 
travelling  backwards  and  forwards  between  Stockholm  and 
St.  Petersburg.  But,  when  that  clever  diplomatist  had 
successfully  concluded  his  pacific  mission,  after  having 
lavished  all  his  skill,  showered  compliments  on  the  Tsar,  and 
whispered  promises  of  ducats  to  his  Ministers,  Dubois,^  who 
then  held  the  reins  of  French  politics,  as  soon  as  the  Treaty 
of  Nystadt  was  safel\'  signed,  put  forward  fresh  demands. 
Before  France  went  aii)'  further,  her  mediation  between  Russia 
and  England  must  be  accepted.     This  was  the  Regent's  great 

*  Kouiakin  Papers,  vol.  ii.  p.  121. 

'  \'illeroi  to  Duliois,  Au(t.  13,  1721  (French  Foreign  Office). 

•  Campredon's  De>patch,  dated  March  23rd,  1721  (French  Foreign  Office). 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  385 

object,  and  his  Minister's.  The  Tsar  agreed  to  discuss  the 
proposal,  but  he,  too,  was  longing  to  introduce  another 
subject,  and  hardly  knew  how  to  set  about  it.  His  plans 
had  undergone  a  change.  Dolgorouki,  who  had  replaced 
Schleinitz  in  Paris,  had  heard  the  King  was  affianced  to  a 
Spanish  Princess.  But  France  was  so  richly  endowed  with 
Princes  that  a  suitable  husband  for  the  Tsarevna  might  yet 
be  found  within  its  borders.  In  November  1721,  Tolstoi' 
flattered  himself  he  had  at  last  found  means  of  broachini; 
the  subject.  With  an  innocent  air,  he  showed  Campredon  a 
copy  of  the  Gazette  de  Hollande,  which  announced  the 
nomination  of  the  Marquis  de  Belle-Isle  as  the  King's 
Ambassador  Extraordinary  to  St.  Petersburg,  charged  to 
request  the  hand  of  the  Tsar  s  eldest  daughter,  for  the  Due 
de  Chartres.^  Campredon  knew  his  business  too  well  to  be 
deceived  as  to  the  origin  of  this  false  news.  But  he  was  some- 
what taken  aback  at  the  extent  of  the  political  combinations 
which  the  Tsar  desired  to  attach  to  this  new  plan.  Russia 
was  to  guarantee  the  status  quo  ;  the  King  of  Spain  was  to 
renounce  his  claim  to  the  French  Crown,  in  favour  of  the 
Kegent;  there  was  to  be  a  mutual  guarantee  between  Russia 
and  PVance,  ensuring  the  Russian  succession  to  the  future 
Duchesse  de  Chartres,  and,  meanwhile,  the  Duke  de  Chartres 
was  to  be  elected  King  of  Poland.  All  these  points,  and 
many  others,  were  contained  in  a  memorandum  drawn  up 
in  January  1 722,  which  the  luckless  Schleinitz,  lifted 
temporarily  out  of  his  beggary,  by  mean^  of  a  few  thousand 
roubles,  was  charged  to  present  to  the  Versailles  Cabinet, — 
Dolgorouki's  official  intervention  appearing  both  inadvisable 
and  risky  to  the  Tsar.^  Campredon,  too,  was  requested  to 
bring  forward  these  proposals  and  requests,  and  to  solicit 
instructions  to  reply  to  them. 

These  instructions  were  long  in  coming,  but  I  am  inclined 
to  think  Dubois  has  been  unjustly  blamed  for  the  prolonged 
silence  in  which  he  is  said  to  have  taken  refuge.  The 
Cardinal  Minister,  and  his  Representative  at  the  Russian 
Court,  are  described  as  having  been  in  complete  conflict 
over  the  matter.  The  Diplomat,  half  distracted  b)-  a  delay 
which    compromised    the    success    of    his    negotiation,    and 

^  Campredon's  Despatch,  Nov.  24,  1721. 

^  Memorandum  presented  by  Schleinitz,  Fe'\  10,  1722.  Secret  instructiors 
addressed  to  him,  Dec.  1721,  flench  Foreign  Office  {Russia,  vcl.  xi.  p.  420). 


386  PETER  THE  GREAT 

imperilled  the  interests  of  his  country ; — the  Cardinal, 
absorbed  by  personal  anxieties,  which  rendered  him  indif- 
ferent to  an\'  other.  Many  picturesque  details  have  been 
grouped  about  the  incident.  We  hear  of  fifteen  couriers 
hurr\ing  one  after  the  other  from  St.  Petersburg  to  Paris, 
and  vainly  awaiting  orders  in  the  Versailles  ante-chamber; 
— of  Campredon  himself,  shut  up  in  his  house,  and  counter- 
feiting sickness,  and  of  de  Bonac,  at  Constantinople,  inter- 
vening, on  his  own  responsibilit}",  in  the  disputes  between 
Russia  and  Turke\',  with  the  object  of  saving  this  invaluable 
alliance  from  the  failure  which  threatened  it.^  French 
historical  authorities  are  pcrj^etually  at  war  with  the 
Government  of  the  Regency,  and  a  foreign  writer  can 
scarcely  dare  to  contradict  historians  who  are  his  own 
masters  in  his  art,  but  he  may,  perhaps,  venture  to  set 
forth  actual  facts.  Campredon  never  sent  fifteen  couriers  to 
Cardinal  Dubois, — he  would  have  found  that  more  than 
difficult.  No  courier  could  travel,  in  those  days,  from  St. 
Petersburg  to  Versailles,  for  less  than  five  or  six  thousand 
iivres,  and,  at  that  particular  moment,  the  French  Diplomat, 
whose  salary  was  more  than  a  year  in  arrear,  had  probably 
shut  himself  up  in  his  house  for  reasons  of  economy. 
During  the  whole  duration  of  his  mission,  tico  couriers,  who 
travelled  in  compan\',  for  safety,  carried  all  the  extraordinary 
despatches  between  the  two  Capitals.  And  the  Marquis  de 
Bonac  had  no  need,  when  he  made  up  for  the  weakness  of 
French  Diplomacy  on  the  banks  of  the  Neva,  by  his  personal 
efforts  at  Constantinople,  to  take  coun.sel  with  his  own 
patriotism  and  clear-headedness  ;  all  he  did  was  to  follow 
ver\'  clear,  and  by  no  means  fresh  instructions,  which  were 
constantly  renewed  up  till  January  1723.^  Finally,  the 
Cardinal,  who,  at  the  close  of  1723,  sent  Campredon  orders 
which  .set  French  foreign  policy  on  a  new  path,  bristling 
with  difficulties,  could  not,  /;/  1724,  have  been  so  absorbed 
by  the  anxieties  of  Home  Government  and  of  his  own 
personal  position,  as  to  leave  his  agent,  for  almost  twelve 
months,  without  any  fresh  insUuctions  ;  and  for  this  simple 
reason, — he  was  dead  ! 

^  .See,  amongst  other  authorities,  Vamlal,  Louis.  XV.  ct  Elisabeth  (Paris, 
1SS2),  pp.  64,  65. 

■■^  De  Bonne's  Instuutinns,  J.nn.  6,  I72^  His  (lesjiatch  to  Dubois,  Jan.  5, 
1723,  P'rcnch  I'Vjrcifjn  Oftice  (  yw-irr,  vol.  Ixv.). 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  •  387 

The  Cardinal  did  indeed  leave  Campredon's  despatches 
and  Baron  de  Schleinitz'  and  Prince  Dolgorouki's  mc  mo- 
randa  unanswered, /or jusi  six  months.  But  this  long  silence 
did  not  fol/oiv,  as  has  been  generally  supposed,  on  the  de- 
spatch of  \\\s  fi7'st  instructions,  as  to  the  extraordinary  Diplo- 
matic overtures  which  had  reached  him  through  various 
channels  from  the  Russian  Court.  The  silence  preceded  the 
instructions,  and  was,  at  that  moment,  perfectly  justified. 
The  whole  of  the  incident  took  place  between  the  Spring 
and  Autumn  of  1722.  Peter,  having  made  peace  with  Sweden, 
had  suddenly  changed  his  views  as  to  his  French  Alliance. 
Up  to  this  point,  he  had  only  considered  it  as  a  warlike 
expedient ;  he  now  regarded  it  as  the  basis  of  a  whole 
political  edifice,  which  was  to  include  the  two  farthest  extre- 
mities of  Europe  —  Poland  and  Spain — which  edifice  he 
desired  to  crown  by  a  family  contract  and  a  brilliant 
marriage.  1  his  marriage  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  end 
and  aim  of  the  whole  undertaking.  The  bomb  once  fired,  he 
left  his  capital,  and  undertook  a  some\\hat  adventurous  ex- 
pedition, more  than  problematic  in  its  results.  I  allude  to 
his  Persian  campaign.  His  absence  lasted  six  months  ;  the 
Cardinal's  silence  covered  the  same  period  of  time.  1  am 
inclined  to  think  that  Dubois  did  the  wisest  thing  possible 
under  the  circumstances,  and  to  affirm,  that  Campredon 
fully  agreed  with  him.  He  made  no  attempt  to  multiply 
his  couriers,  and  never  lost  patience,  except  as  regarded  the 
fact  that  he  was  left  without  money.  Nothing  really  suf- 
fered, save  and  except  his  own  strong  taste  for  expense  and 
luxury. 

In  the  month  of  October  1722,  news  reached  Versailles  of 
the  relative  success  of  the  Persian  expedition,  of  the  likeli- 
hood of  a  fresh  conflict  between  Russia  and  Turkey,  and  of 
the  departure  of  lagoujinski  for  Vienna,  on  a,  probabl}', 
important  mission.  Dubois  forthwith  concluded  it  was 
time  to  speak,  and,  pre-occupicd  as  he  may  hitherto  have 
been,  by  the  crisis  through  which  the  Regent's  Government 
was  passing,  in  consequence  of  his  own  struggle  with  Ville- 
roy,  it  was  not  too  late.  The  two  couriers  already  referred 
to,  Massip  and  Puylaurent,  left  Versailles  on  the  25th  of 
October  1722,  and  arrived  at  Moscow  on  the  5th  of  De- 
cember— before  lagoujinski's  departure.  Campredon,  who 
was  warned  of  their  approach,  ventured,  before  their  arrival, 


388  PETER  THE  GREAT 

to  joke  the  departing  Diplomat.  lagoujinski  had  just  rid 
himself  of  his  wife,  and  forced  her  to  take  the  veil.  Was  he, 
the  {'"rcnch  Minister  inquired,  going  to  Vienna  in  search  of 
a  new  partner?  '  I  would  rather  have  sought  one  in  Paris,' 
replied  the  Russian,  'but  you  have  kept  us  waiting  too  long.* 
'  Pray  wait  a  few  days  longer,'  answered  the  Frenchman. 

Massip  and  Puylaurent  brought  the  French  Envoy  every- 
thing his  heart  could  desire — clear  and  definite  orders  in  the 
same  sense  as  those  De  Bonac  had  received,  monc)'  to  set 
him  on  his  feet  again,  and  more  money,  to  distribute  to  those 
about  him.  The  sums  bestowed  on  him  were  very  liberal, 
and  his  orders,  on  the  whole,  were  very  reasonable.  The 
Versailles  authorities  would  not  hear  of  mixing  up  the  two 
affairs.  The  Franco-Russian  alliance  was  one  thing,  the 
idea  of  marrying  the  Due  de  Chartres  to  the  Tsarevna  was 
another.  The  first  question  depended  on  the  subsidies  to  be 
paid  by  France,  and  the  services  to  be  rendered  by  Russia. 
'  France  was  willing  to  give  as  many  as  400,000  crowns  a 
year ;  would  Russia  absolutely  promise  the  assistance  of  an 
army,  in  the  case  of  a  war  with  Germany  ? '  The  second 
question  was  a  matter  of  expediency.  If  the  Princess  l^liza- 
beth's  dowry  was  to  consist  of  the  Crown  of  Poland,  she 
must  bring  that  dowry  in  her  hand.  All  accessory  condi- 
tions would  be  easily  arranged.  The  Regent  would  even 
consent  to  recognise  the  Tsar's  lately  assumed  Imperial  title, 
though  not,  of  course,  without  claiming  a  considerable  price 
in  return  for  this  concession. 

The  negotiation  seemed  in  a  fair  way  to  success.  Why 
then  did  it  fail?  How  came  it  to  be  delayed  again, 
and  for  a  considerable  time?  Through  no  fault  of  the 
Cardinal's,  certainl)-.  The  first  difficulties  arose  out  of  the 
nature  and  diplomatic  habits  of  the  Russian  Government,  to 
which  I  have  already  referred.  Muscovite  Diplomacy  always 
worked  secretly,  groping  its  way.  Every  conference  was 
hedged  in  with  an  amount  of  precaution  which  sorely 
hindered  progress.  The  Ministers,  full  of  suspicion  and 
constantly  on  the  qjii  vive,  were  inapproachable  in  their  own 
offices.  Secret  interviews  were  held, — sometimes  even  in 
such  places  as  the  Cafe  of  the  '  Four  Frigates,'  a  favourite 
resort  of  common  sailors.  The  Tsar,  as  distrustful  and 
secretive  as  his  Ministers,  always  made  some  public  pretext 
for  conferring  with   a   foreign    Diplomat,  to   mask   the   real 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  389 

object  of  the  interview.  In  February  1723,  he  took  advan- 
tage of  Campredon's  request  for  an  audience,  to  announce 
the  death  of  Madame,  to  send  for  him  to  his  house  at 
Preobrajenskoie,  where,  behind  carefully  closed  doors,  and 
assisted  by  Catherine,  who  acted  as  interpreter,  he  opened 
his  heart ; — and  then  it  became  evident  that  the  two  Powers 
were  once  more  utterly  at  variance.  Campredon  held  to  his 
instructions,  which  had  not  changed,  and  were  not  to  change, 
even  after  Dubois  and  the  Regent  were  dead,  and  the  Due 
de  Bourbon  was  at  the  head  of  affairs.  The  Russian 
Sovereign's  ideas  had  altered.  He  still  desired  to  marry 
his  daughter  to  a  French  Prince,  and  to  give  her  Poland 
for  her  portion,  declaring  that  the  reigning  king  of  that 
country  would  '  be  easily  persuaded,  through  the  medium 
of  some  new  mistress,  witty  and  attractive,  to  vacate  the 
throne.'  But  he  seemed  opposed,  both  in  word  and  deed,  to 
any  political  alliance  between  the  two  countries,  tie  hinted 
at  a  possible  rupture  with  Turkey,  from  which  Power  he 
desired  to  retake  the  town  of  Azof  He  seemed  to  meditate 
an  expedition  into  Sweden,  with  the  object  of  placing  the 
Duke  of  Holstein  on  the  throne,  aided  by  a  popular  insur- 
rection. He  even  spoke  of  joining  the  Pretender,  and  send- 
ing Russian  troops  to  make  a  descent  on  the  shores  of 
Great  Britain. 1  In  August  1723,  just  after  the  death  of 
Dubois,  the  new  Secretary  of  State,  De  Morx-ille,  then  taking 
up  the  direction  of  foreign  affairs,  was  fain  to  write  to  Cam- 
predon in  the  following  terms :  '  Your  despatches  have  proved 
more  clearly  than  ever  the  utter  impossibility  of  treating 
with  the  Tsar,  until  he  has  settled  his  plans  and  ideas  .  .  . 
we  must  wait  till  time  and  opportunity  permit  us  to  judge 
whether  the  King  may  safely  make  engagements  with  this 
Prince,  and  carry  them  out.'  They  waited  thus,  and  vainly, 
until  Peter  died.  No  progress  whatever  was  made.  Cam- 
predon may,  at  one  moment,  have  thought  success  was 
within  his  grasp.  Early  in  August  1724,  the  Tsar  was  filled 
with  joy  at  the  news  of  a  pacific  arrangement,  to  which  De 
ISonac  had  powerfully  contributed,  of  his  differences  with 
Turkey.  As  he  was  leaving  the  Church,  in  which  a  Te 
Deum  had  just  been  sung,  he  embraced  the  P'rench  Envoy, 
and  sj)oke  these  words,  big  with  promise — '  You  have  always 
been  an  angel  of  peace  to  me  !     I  am  not  ungrateful,  as  you 

*  Solovief,  vol.  xviii.  p.  131, 


390  PETER  THE  GREAT 

will  soon  perceive.'  A  few  days  later,  the  Russian  Ministers 
appeared  at  the  French  Lei^ation,  their  faces  wreathed  in 
smiles.  Their  master  had  given  in  on  every  point,  even  on 
that  which  had  hitherto  formed  <jne  of  the  principal  difficul- 
ties of  the  negotiation — the  admission  of  luigland  into  the 
arrangement  to  be  made  with  France.  The  alliance  seemed 
a  settled  thing.  But  all  these  rejoicings  were  premature. 
There  was  another  long  pause,  and  the  signing  of  the  Treaty 
was  still  deferred.  Peter  and  all  his  circle  were  so  completely 
absorbed  by  the  IMons  business,  that,  until  the  end  of  No- 
vember, it  was  impossible  to  get  speech  with  them.  And 
besides,  every  time  Camj^redon  met  Ostermann,  he  was 
obliged  to  risk  his  life  in  crossing  the  Neva.  There 
was  no  bridge,  and  great  blocks  of  ice  came  whirling 
down  the  stream.  When,  at  last,  communications 
were  re-opened  and  a  conference  arranged,  matters  once 
more  came  to  a  full  standstill ;  the  Tsar  had  changed  his 
mind,  and  would  not  hear  of  England  being  included  in  the 
alliance.  What  had  happened  ?  It  was  a  very  simple 
matter.  Kourakin,  who  had  been  sent  to  Paris,  to  replace 
Dolgorouki,  finding  his  new  post  a  pleasant  one,  and  desiring 
to  remain  there,  had  sent  home  accounts  of  certain  imaginary 
diplomatic  triumphs,  of  which  the  Russian  Sovereign's 
friendly  expressions  to  Campredon,  and  his  conciliatory 
inclinations,  had  been  the  outcome.  Kourakin  had  even 
gone  so  far  as  to  give  his  master  hopes  of  a  possibia 
marriage  between  the  Tsarevna  and  Louis  XV.  himself, 
— whom  he  described  as  being  tired  of  his  Spanish  fianc^e.^ 
But  he  had  been  forced,  finally,  to  acknowledge  the  truth, 
and  even  to  admit  that  the  marriage  of  the  Russian  l*rincess 
with  any  one  of  the  Princes  of  the  Blood,  was  considered  by 
the  PVcnch  Ministers  'too  remote  a  possibility  to  be  mixed 
up  in  the  present  negotiation.' 

P"rom  that  moment,  the  fate  of  that  negotiation  was  scaled. 
It  did  indeed  seem  to  return  to  some  life  and  hope,  after 
Catherine  I.'s  accession,  but  it  soon  fell  back  into  oblivion. 
The  Treaty  lay  unsigned,  and  the  Tsarevna  Elizabeth 
remained  unmarried.  The  alliance  thus  prematurely  pro- 
jected was  not  to  become  a  reality  for  another  century  and  a 
half,  and  its  way  was  yet  to  be  prepared,  amidst  trials  and 
convulsions    which    shook    the    whole    European   continent. 

^  Solovief,  vol.  xviii.  p.  126. 


THE  APOGEE— FRANCE  391 

The  failure  of  the  attempt,  made  on  the  threshold  of  thp  i8th 
century,  may,  I  think,  be  explained  and  justified  without 
necessarily  casting  blame  on  the  Governments  either  of 
France  or  of  Russia.  No  agreement  was  come  to,  because, 
in  the  first  place,  the  separation  between  the  two  countries 
was  too  great,  and  in  the  second,  because,  while  apparently 
desiring  the  arrangement,  they  were,  in  reality,  marching, 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  negotiation,  in  dia- 
metrically opposite  directions.  The  very  wish  for  any  under- 
standing was,  in  the  first  instance,  quite  one-sided.  Peter 
was  for  some  time  the  only  person  who  seriously  felt  it. 
Then,  when  his  desire  was  shared  by  both  countries,  one 
Government  claimed  to  realise  it  in  one  fashion,  and  the 
other  in  another.  France  desired  a  political,  and  Peter  a 
domestic  alliance, — each  of  which  only  suited  the  purpose 
of  the  nation  which  put  it  forward.  We  cannot  wonder,  nor 
find  fault,  if  the  French  King  felt  little  inclination  to  espouse 
the  natural  daughter  of  a  ci-dcvcxnt  laundress  (to  say  no 
worse),  whose  birth  had  been  legitimized  by  a  tardy  and 
secret  marriage  ;  nor  that  Russia  was  scarcely  disposed  to 
assume  the  ill-paid  political  yoke  which  had  already  galled 
the  necks  of  Poland  and  Sweden.  There  was  no  clearly 
marked  ground  for  the  union  of  the  two  nations,  and  of  their 
interests.  That  meeting-point  was  to  be  prepared  in  later 
days,  by  a  recent  cataclysm,  which  has  affected  the  whole 
scheme  of  European  politics. 


26 


BOOK    II— TIIK   INTERNAL  STRUGGLE— 
THE    REFORMS 

CHAPTER    I 

THE   NEW   R£GIMK — THE   END   OF   THE   STRELTSY — 
ST.    PETERSBURG 

I.  The  new  Regime — Preliminary  question — The  Reforms  and  the  customs  of 
ancient  Muscovy — Slavophiles,  and  Lovers  of  the  West— Origin  of  the 
Reforming  movement — Krnm  nv/itiion  to  rtfoliition — (leneral  character- 
istics of  the  work — The  order  in  which  its  results  may  be  studied — Typical 
features. 
II.  The  end  of  the  Stieltsy — l!s  causes — The  new  army  and  the  old  armed 
bands — Discontent  of  the  latter — Mutiny— Peter  makes  it  a  pretext  for 
extermination  — A  huge  inquiry— Fourteen  torture  chambers — Lack  of 
results— The  Tsarevna  Sojihia — Her  complicity  n'lt  proved  —  She  is 
sentenced  to  take  the  veil — Wholesale  executions— Peter  s  share  in  them 
— The  Juiige — The  Moscow  Place  (\c  la  Greve — The  Lobuoie  miesto. 
III.  St.  Petersburg— Before  and  after  Poltava — Fortress  or  Capital? — Peter's 
reasons  for  making  it  his  seat  of  Government — Criticism  and  justification 
— The  National  traditions. 


My  Russian  readers  would  not  forgive  me,  if  I  began  this 
section  of  my  work  without  touching  on  a  prefatory 
problem,  which, — apart  from  historical  criticism,  properly 
so  called, — is  the  inexhaustible  subject  of  a  most  passionate 
national  discussion.  Did  not  Peter,  when  he  cast  Russia 
into  the  arms  of  European  civilisation,  do  violence  to  the 
history  of  his  country,  and  despise  and  overlook  native 
elements  of  original  culture,  susceptible  of  a  development 
which  would,  perhaps,  have  been  superior  to,  and,  at  all 
events,  more  in  conformity  with,  the  spirit  of  his  people? 
This  is  the  great  bone  of  contention  between  the  Slavophiles 
and  the  lovers  of  the  West. 

.S02 


THE  NEW  REGIME  393 

The  question  of  ethnical  origin,  which  seenns,  nowadays, 
to  be  fairly  settled,  and  cast  into  oblivion,  may  be  put  on 
one  side.  Physiologically  speaking,  Russia,  whether  she 
wills  it  or  not,  holds  a  clearly  marked  place  in  the  great 
Indo-European  family.  Morally  speaking,  her  civilisation 
is  founded  and  built  up  with  Indo-European  materials. 
Certain  of  these  materials,  by  their  geographical  and 
historical  conditions,  have  been  endowed  with  special 
characteristics,  giving  birth  to  customs  and  ideas,  con- 
ceptions and  habits,  quite  apart  from  those  of  other 
nations: — as,  for  example,  in  matters  of  property,  of  family 
life,  and  of  the  sovereign  power.  Did  Peter  make  '  a  clean 
sweep'  of  all  this?  And  that  being  granted,  did  he  act 
wisely  in  so  doing?  The  whole  discussion  now  lies  in  these 
questions. 

The  inquiry  I  am  now  about  to  make  will,  I  hope,  if  it 
does  not  decide,  at  all  events  throw  some  light  upon,  the 
subject.  It  will  lead  us  at  once  to  the  recognition,  on  one 
side,  of  the  inconsistency,  the  rudimentary,  embryonic,  and 
inorganic  condition,  of  the  greater  part  of  those  elements 
upon  which  the  great  Reformer  was  called  to  work  ;  and,  on 
the  other,  of  the  persistency  of  certain  features,  some  of 
which  remained  intact,  under  a  factitious  appearance  of 
modification,  while  others  completely  escaped  the  action  of 
the  Reform. 

The  '  clean  sweep '  was  not  so  complete  as  some  have 
imagined.  The  old  n^ginie  had,  in  many  respects,  become 
unworkable  before  Peter's  time.  It  was  essentially  founded 
on  two  principles — orthodoxy  and  the  absolute  power 
{sajiiodierjavic), — and  these,  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  had  been  tottering  to  their  fall ;  the  first,  ruined  by 
the  inward  faults  of  its  original  organisation,  and  the  second, 
by  an  exaggeration  of  its  fundamental  idea,  due,  in  part,  to 
that  political  competition,  from  which  Peter  himself  only 
escaped  by  means  of  a  coup  d'etat.  After  the  Muscovite 
hegemony  rose  on  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  independent  and 
rival  States,  the  Sovereign's  personal  power  took  on  an 
Oriental  form,  based  on  his  private  right.  All  idea  of 
feudal  suzerainty  was  past  and  gone  ;  the  ruler  held  by  a 
title  of  ownership,  which  affected  both  the  persons  of  his 
subjects,  and  their  property.  No  other  title  was  acknow- 
ledged, save  and  except  in  the  case  of  the  Church.     There 


394  PETER  THE  GREAT 

was  no  passr.ij^c  b)'  legal  inheritance  from  one  subject  to 
another, — nothing  but  a  division,  occasional!)'  hereditary 
{''ottc/iina),  oftener  a  mere  life  interest  {po)nicstit),  but 
invariably  arbitrary,  of  lands,  granted  by  the  Sovereign,  in 
exchange  for  service  paid.  There  was  no  private  commerce 
or  industry,  or  hardly  any, — for  commerce  and  industry,  like 
everything  else,  were  the  Tsar's  property,  and  his  monopoly, 
which  was  well-nigh  universal,  only  brooked  the  existence 
of  the  middleman.  The  Sovereign  even  bought  food  of 
every  kind, — meat,  fruit,  and  vegetables, — wholesale,  and 
sold  it  retail.^  The  independent  Dukes  of  former  times, 
the  Rurikovitch  of  Tver,  laroslav,  Smolensk,  Tchernihof, 
Riazan,  Viasma,  and  Rostov,  had  ended  b}-  being  no  more 
than  a  mere  aristocrac)',  among  the  servants  of  the  common 
master.  They  balanced  the  peasantry, — all  of  them,  except 
a  few  free  peasants  in  the  South,  serfs,  since  the  year  1 600, 
—  and  avenged  their  own  abasement  upon  it.  There 
was  no  other  social  class,  no  trading  corporations,  no  social 
existence.  The  Merchant  Corporation  of  Novgorod,  which 
had  originally  brought  prosperity  to  the  old  cit\-,  had  dis- 
appeared, with  every  other  trace  of  Norman  organisation 
and  culture.  Moscow,  in  her  struggle  \t'ith  the  Mongol 
power,  had  borrowed  Mongol  principles  and  forms  of 
government,  and,  to  ensure  her  supremacy  over  the 
neighbouring  towns,  had  carried  the  application  of  those 
princii^les  and  methods  to  their  furthest  consequences. 

The  Tsar  then  was  not  only  the  master,  he  was,  in  the 
most  absolute  sense  of  the  term,  the  proprietor,  of  his 
country  and  of  his  people.  But  his  right  and  his  might, 
soaring  as  they  were,  lacked  firm  support.  Beneath  them 
was  an  empty  void,  filled  with  the  dust  of  slavery.  There 
were  no  social  groups,  there  was  no  hierarchy,  there  was  no 
organic  bond,  of  any  kind,  between  these  incoherent  monads. 
They  all  came  and  went  at  random,  driven  hither  and 
thither  by  elementary  instincts,  swarming  in  a  wild  con- 
fusion of  unbridled  passion  and  brutal  appetite  ;  falling  on 
the  nearest  prey,  passing  from  Peter  to  Sophia,  and  back 
again  from  Sophia  to  Peter,  with  all  the  unconscious 
indifference  peculiar  to  untaught  masses.  The  present  was 
chaos,  the  future  was  black  darkness. 

The  Church,  when  it  reached   Kief  from   Byzantium,  was 

'   Kotoshihin,  Memoirs,  ch.  x. 


THE  NEW  REGIME  395 

already  worn  out  and  degraded.  All  moral  strength  had 
been  lost  in  the  decadence  of  the  Greek  Empire  ;  the  spirit 
of  the  faith  had  been  overlaid  with  forms  ;  religion  was 
swaddled  in  the  bonds  of  a  complicated  devotion,  stifled 
under  relics,  images,  special  prayers,  fasts,  and  an  utterly 
incomprehensible  liturgy.  The  priests,  thanks  to  the  huge 
number  of  monasteries  which  sprang  up  all  over  the 
country,  soon  grew  rich  and  influential.  But  these 
advantages  were  only  used, —  as  the  Catholic  priests  used 
theirs,  in  the  worst  periods  of  the  Papal  power, — for  the 
intellectual  debasement  of  the  people,  without  any  attempt 
to  follow  the  example  of  the  best  Popes,  by  striving  after 
the  moral  and  economic  improvement  of  the  masses. 
When,  under  the  Tsar  Alexis,  the  Russian  Church  desired 
to  introduce  a  simple  reform  in  her  ritual,  her  weakness 
instantly  became  apparent.  Mutiny  and  schism  raised  their 
heads — and  the  Raskol  broke  out. 

Peter  reached  power  by  a  coup  d'etat.  The  Strcltsy,  in- 
fluenced by  Sophia,  attempted  to  overthrow  him  by  another. 
Thus,  at  a  very  early  age,  he  became  aware  of  the  void 
on  which  his  omnipotence  rested.  When, — Chief  of  a  great 
Empire  as  he  was, — he  essayed,  prior  to  the  defeat  of  Narva, 
and  under  the  walls  of  Azof,  to  employ  the  strength  he 
believed  himself  to  possess,  everything  gave  \\a}'  beneath 
his  feet.  Within  a  few  hours,  his  armies  were  dispersed. — 
within  a  few  days,  his  treasury  was  empty, — and  his  whole 
administration  broken  down. 

The  great  Reformer's  predecessors  were  fully  conscious  of 
this  condition  of  things,  and  did  what  they  could  to  remedy 
it.  Their  ideas,  their  attempts,  and  even  their  desires,  may, 
in  some  cases,  have  been  somewhat  vague  and  undecided, 
but  in  other  matters,  they  took  active  steps,  and  they 
sketched  out  a  whole  programme  of  reforms,  with  the  object, 
not  indeed  of  radically  modifying,  but  of  improving  the 
existing  rcf^ime,  and  fitting  it  for  the  new  demands  of  a 
political  position  which  was  constantly  increasing  in  import- 
tance,  and  ambitious  possibilities.  Their  programme  included 
the  reorganisation  of  the  armed  forces,  and,  as  an  inevitable 
consequence,  the  improvement  of  the  finances, — the  develop- 
ment of  the  economic  resources  of  the  country, — and  the 
encouragement  of  foreign  commerce.  They  admitted  the 
necessity  of  more  direct  intercourse  and  co-operation  with 


396  PETER  THE  GREAT 

foreign  countries.  They  looked  to  .1  commencement  of 
social  reforms,  by  the  emancipation  of  the  urban  classes, 
and  even  of  the  serfs,  and  finally,  under  the  auspices  of 
Nicone,  they  laid  a  finger  on  the  Church,  and,  consequently, 
on  the  National  education, — the  Church  being  the  only 
vehicle  of  education  in  existence. 

Then  we  come  to  Peter.  What  otJicr,  what  nczv  thing  did 
he  do?  Nothing,  or,  at  most,  very  little  indeed.  The  pro- 
gramme above  referred  to  was  his  programme ;  he  enlarged 
it  a  little,  added  the  Reform  of  the  national  customs  ;  he 
modified  the  nature  of  the  intercourse  already  in  existence 
with  the  Western  world  ;  but  he,  too,  left  the  foundations  of 
the  jjolitical  edifice  he  had  inherited,  intact,  and  he  even 
failed,  from  the  social  point  of  view,  to  carry  out  the  plans 
his  predecessors  had  conceived  or  prepared.  In  spite  of  the 
ajjparent  universality  of  his  efforts,  his  work — and  this  has 
not  been  sufficiently  noted — is,  generally  speaking,  some- 
what limited,  and  exceedingly  su[jcrficial,  even  within  those 
limits.  It  is,  as  I  have  previously  said,  a  sort  o{  rc-plastcriug 
axxd  pafch<uork  business,  with  nothing  absolutely  new  about 
it.  It  was  begun  before  his  time, — what  he  did  was  to 
change  the  conditions  under  which  it  was  to  be  carried  on 
in  future.  The  new  factor  was,  in  the  first  place,  the  endless 
war,  which,  fcjr  twenty  long  years,  was  to  inspire,  direct  and 
drive  him  forward,  and  which  resulted,  on  one  hand,  in 
hurrying  the  work  of  e\'olution  already  commenced,  and,  on 
the  other,  of  inverting  the  natural  order  of  the  political  and 
social  modifications  consequent  upon  it,  to  suit  temporary 
requirements,  not  necessarily  corresponding  to  the  most 
urgent  needs  of  the  national  life.  In  the  second  place,  we 
have  the  tastes,  habits  of  mind,  manias  and  fancies,  which 
the  gifted  but  whimsical  ruler  owed  to  his  education,  his 
visits  to  the  Sloboda,  and  his  intercourse  with  Europe. 
These  he  erected  into  principles,  giving  them  a  place  in  his 
great  scheme,  quite  out  of  proportion  with  their  intrinsic 
value.  These  innovations  of  his  were  just  the  points  which 
were  most  offensive  to  his  subjects.  Finally,  the  Reformer's 
personal  temperament,  which  endued  all  his  measures  with 
qualities  of  violence,  excess  and  hastiness,  both  painful  and 
disconcerting  to  every  one  they  affected,  must  be  taken  into 
account.  What  had  been  a  peaceful  evolution  became,  m 
consequence  of  these  peculiarities,  a  7'cvolntion.     Those  very 


THE  NEW  REGIME  397 

tendencies  and  attempts  which,  in  the  reigns  of  Alexis  and 
Feodor,  roused  but  the  slightest  resistance,  now  provoked 
an  insurrection,  which,  in  its  earlier  days,  was  almost  general, 
and  necessitated  strong  and  vigorous  measures  of  repression. 
The  reforms,  promulgated  at  the  will  of  the  Sovereign,  in 
sharp  and  sudden  jerks,  without  any  apparent  order  or  con- 
secutiveness,  fell  on  his  subjects  like  storms  of  hail,  or 
thunderbolts.  Peter  himself,  harried  by  his  long  war, 
carried  away  by  his  own  eagerness,  fascinated  by  what  he 
had  seen  in  Germany,  in  England,  and  in  Holland,  could 
neither  clearly  arrange  his  plans,  nor  prepare  them  thought- 
fully, nor  show  patience  in  their  execution.  He  swept  over 
his  country  and  his  people  like  a  whirlwind,  extemporising 
and  inventing  expedients,  and  terrorising  all  around  him. 

But  this  peculiarity,  as  I  should  not  dream  of  denying, 
gave  the  renovating  movement,  out  of  which  modern  Russia 
sprang,  a  fulness  and  a  swiftness,  which  the  timid  attempts 
of  Alexis  and  Feodor  could  never  have  imparted.  Peter,  in 
a  few  years,  had  performed  the  work  of  several  centuries.  It 
may  be  doubted  whether  this  sudden  bound  across  time  and 
space  was  an  unmixed  benefit.  That  is  another  point,  the 
study  of  which  must,  in  my  opinion,  be  preceded  by  that  of 
accomplished  facts, — in  other  words,  of  the  results  obtained. 

The  work  of  tracing  these  results,  as  they  successively 
appear,  in  the  history  of  the  great  reign,  would  be  a  most 
ungrateful  task,  and  could  only  inspire  a  general  sensation 
of  chaos.  The  order  of  their  appearance  was  determined, 
up  to  a  certain  point,  by  the  great  originating  element  to 
which  I  have  referred.  The  war  made  military  reforms  a 
first  necessity,  and  these  called  forth  financial  measures, 
which,  in  their  turn,  made  economic  enterprises  indispens- 
able. But  this  procession  of  things  is  not  an  absolute 
rule,  as  the  attempt  at  municipal  re-organisation,  at  the 
very  beginning  of  Peter's  reign,  will  prove.  I  shall  be 
guided,  in  my  inquiry,  by  the  relative  importance  of  the 
various  points.  But  to  clear  the  way,  and  cast  some  light 
upon  the  wide  and  crowded  field  I  have  to  consider,  I  will 
iirst  mention  certain  features,  which, — though  their  relation  to 
the  Reformer's  work  is  in  itself  merely  accessory,  and  very 
secondary, — have  been  considered  by  the  public  to  represent 
its  essence,  and  its  whole  scope.  And  the  public,  elementary 
as  its  conception  of  matters   naturally  is,  has  n(jt  been  alto- 


39*  PETER  THE  GREAT 

g^etlicr  in  the  wroni;.  Insii^nificant  in  ihcmsclves  as  these 
features  may  be,  the\'  are  most  invaluable  as  the  expression 
ami  the  api^arcnt  symbol  of  the  new  regime.  And  for  this 
reason,  doubtless,  the)'  have  a[)pealed  to  the  imaj^ination  of 
the  masses.  I  refer  to  the  'clippint^  of  the  beards,'  the 
suppression  of  the  Strcltsy,  and  the  buildinij  of  St.  ]*eters- 
bur-r. 


II 

When  the  young  Tsar  returned  from  his  first  European 
journe)',  he  appeared  before  his  subjects  in  the  cast-off 
garments  of  Augustus  of  Poland,  —  a  Western  costume, 
which,  hitherto,  he  had  never  worn  in  their  sight.  A  few 
hours  later,  at  a  banquet  given  by  General  Shem,  he  laid 
hands  on  a  pair  of  scissors,  and  began  to  clip  the  guests' 
beards.  His  jester,  Tourguenief,  followed  his  example.  The 
witnesses  of  this  scene  may  have  thought  it  a  mere  despot's 
whim.  Peter  himself  was  naturally  hairless,  his  beard  was 
sparse,  and  his  moustache  grew  thinly.  He  had  been  drink- 
ing freely,  and  his  behaviour  may  have  been  taken  for  a  mere 
outburst  of  gaiety.  Jiut  no!  a  few  days  later,  the  clipping 
was  sanctioned  by  a  ukase.  A  huge  reform,  moral,  intel- 
lectual, and  economic,  had  been  initiated  by  an  absurd 
festive  incident,  which  took  place  between  the  drinking  ot 
two  glasses  of  wine.  I  shall  later  refer  to  the  more  serious 
side  of  the  matter. 

Close  upon  this  came  the  suppression  of  the  Strdtsy.  This 
was  an  unexpected  but  a  very  natural  consequence, — the 
first, — of  the  warlike  projects  which  had  haunted  the  )-oung 
Tsar  ever  since  he  had  made  acquaintance  with  his  Saxon- 
Polish  friend,  Augustus.  He  had  learnt,  under  the  walls  of 
Azof,  the  true  value  of  his  armed  bands,  and  had  realised 
that  the  military  strength  he  had  believed  himself  to 
possess  had  no  real  existence.  He  had  then  openly 
declared  his  intention  of  training  his  new  levies  on  the 
PLuropean  system, — of  the  relative  superiority  of  which 
he  had  already  seen  proof,  —  and  of  making  his  two 
'pleasure  regiments'  the  nucleus  of  the  new  organisation. 
And  one  of  his  apparent  reasons  for  crossing  the  frontier, 
was  to  study  the  principles  to  be  applied  to  this  work. 
Thus  the  old    Muscovite    ami)', — the  Stnilsy, — saw    itsclt 


THE  END  OF  THE  STRELTSY  399 

doomed  to  disappear.  For  some  time  past  the  most  un- 
grateful tasks  had  been  allotted  to  it.  During  the  war  games 
which  had  taken  place  before  the  campaign  of  Azof,  the 
Streltsy  were  always  ordered  to  represent  the  vanquished 
side.  After  the  capture  of  Azof,  the  '  pleasure  regiments ' 
went  to  Moscow,  where  they  made  a  triumphal  entry,  re- 
ceived an  ovation,  and  were  loaded  with  rewards, — while  the 
Streltsy  were  left  behind  to  rebuild  the  fortifications  of  the 
conquered  town.  Humiliated  and  ill-treated,  even  be- 
fore they  were  absolutely  destroyed,  they  broke  out  into 
mutiny.  In  March  1698,  while  Peter  was  in  England,  they 
sent  a  deputation  to  Moscow  from  Azof,  to  explain  their 
grievances.  It  returned  without  having  obtained  satisfac- 
tion and  bearing  exciting  news.  Peter  had  gone  over  to  the 
foreigners,  body  and  soul,  and  his  sister,  the  Tsarevna  Sophia, 
who  was  shut  up  in  the  Dicvitchyi  Mojiastyr,  appealed  to  her 
former  partisans,  to  defend  the  Church  and  Throne  against 
a  revolutionary  and  impious  Sovereign.  Letters  from  the 
ex-Regent  (whether  false  or  genuine,  no  one  knew)  were  cir- 
culated in  the  regiments.  A  body  of  Streltsy,  numbering  some 
2000  men,  was  detached  from  the  Azof  garrison,  and  sent  to 
Vielikie-Louki  to  guard  the  Polish  frontier.  The  men  were 
furious  at  being  separated  from  their  comrades,  and  forced 
to  march  from  one  end  of  the  Empire  to  the  other.  The 
Streltsy  had  always  been  left  at  home  in  time  of  peace. 
They  mutinied,  and  marched  on  Moscow.  General  Shei'n 
marched  against  them  with  superior  forces  and  artillery,  met 
them  on  the  17th  of  June,  within  sight  of  the  Monastery  of 
the  Resurrection,  killed  some,  took  the  rest,  hung  several  of 
his  prisoners,  after  having  put  them  to  the  question, — and 
the  incident  appeared  closed.^ 

But  it  was  far  from  being  closed.  Peter,  when  he  learnt 
the  news,  hastened  his  return,  resolved  to  take  advantage  of 
the  circumstances,  and  strike  a  decisive  blow.  Ever  since 
his  childhood,  the  Streltsy  had  stood  in  his  way.  They  had 
put  his  relations  and  friends  to  the  sword  ;  they  had  sup- 
ported a  usurper's  power  against  his  own,  and  on  this  last 
occasion,  when  parle)'ing  wii.h  Shc'i'n,  before  the  skirmish 
in  which  they  were  routed,  they  had  used  the  most  violent 
language  with  respect  to  Lefort,  and  the  other  foreigners 
who  surrounded  him.      He  was  weary  of  it   all  ;    he  was 

^  Moscow  State  Papers,  The  Streltsy  ;  Solovief,  vol.  xiv.  p.  254. 


400  PETER  THE  GREAT 

determined  to  make  an  end,  to  clear  his  native  soil  of  these 
seeds  of  perpetual  revolt,  and  drown  the  visions  which  had 
haunted  him,  from  his  cradle,  in  a  sea  of  blood.  A  few 
blows  with  the  knout,  and  half  a  dozen  executions,  would 
not  suffice  him  ;  the  work,  this  time,  was  to  be  done  on  a 
large  scale,  and  satisfy  him  wholly.  The  inquir)-,  which 
Shein  and  Romodanovski  had  hastily  conducted  and  closed, 
was  reopened,  and  took  proportions  unprecedented,  as  I 
would  fain  believe,  in  the  history  of  the  human  race.  Four- 
teen torture-chambers  {aastieuok)  were  opened  in  the  village 
of  Prcobrajenskoie,  and  their  hellish  apparatus,^ — even  to 
gridirons  on  which  the  Hesh  of  the  prisoners  was  left  to 
grill, — worked  day  and  night.  One  man  was  put  to  the 
question  seven  times  over,  and  received  ninety-nine  blows 
from  the  knout.  .Fifteen  such  blows  generally  resulted  in 
death.  Lieutenant-Colonel  Korpakof  stuck  a  knife  into  his 
throat  to  put  an  end  to  his  own  anguish  ;  but  the  wound  was 
not  fatal,  and  the  torture  went  on.  Man}^  women, — wives, 
sisters,  or  relations  of  the  Strcltsy,  and  servants,  or  ladies,  in 
attendance  on  Sophia, — were  treated  in  the  same  manner. 
One  of  them  bore  a  child  in  the  midst  of  her  torments.  The 
inquiry  was  principally  concerned  with  the  part  taken  by  the 
Tsarevna  and  her  sisters  in  leading  up  to  the  insurrectionary 
movem.ent.  Peter  was  certain  of  their  guilt.  Ikit  he  desired 
proof, — and  proof  was  what  the  incjuiry  failed  to  elicit. 
'  They  may  very  well  die  for  us,'  writes  one  of  the  princesses, 
coolly,  about  some  waiting-women,  who  were  to  be  put  to 
the  torture,  and  on  whose  silence  she  reckoned.  One  Strclctz 
endured  all  the  anguish  of  the  strappado,  received  thirty 
lashes  with  the  knout,  and  was  slowly  burnt,  but  not  a  word 
would  he  utter.  Some  half  admission,  some  vague  indica- 
tion, was  occasionally  wrung  from  him  ;  as  soon  as  he 
recovered  breath,  he  would  contradict  himself,  or  relapse, 
again,  into  stubborn  silence.  Sophia  herself,  whom  Peter,  it 
is  said,  examined,  and  put  to  the  torture  with  his  own 
hands,  never  wavered.  All  her  younger  sister  Marfa  would 
admit,  was,  that  she  had  informed  the  ex-Regent  of  the 
ajiproach  of  the  Strcltsy,  and  of  their  desire  to  see  her  rule 
re-established. 

So  far  as  this  point  was  concerned,  the  incjuiry  was  an 
utter  failure.  A  most  compromising  letter  from  Sophia  to 
the   Strr/tsj',  published   by  Oustrialof,  is  acknowledged,  by 


THE  END  OF  THE  STRELTSY  401 

that  generally  well-informed  historian,^  to  be  made  up  of 
stray  and  incoherent  scraps  of  depositions,  gathered  in  the 
torture-chamber,  and  retracted  most  probably  by  those  who 
made  them.  The  Tsarevna  was  closely  watched  in  her  prison 
in  the  NovodievitcJiyi  Mo7iastyr,2.  detachment  of  100  soldiers 
mounted  guard  before  the  convent ;  but  she  still  had  means 
of  corresponding  with  the  outer  world,  and  of  keeping  up 
daily  intercourse  with  the  Court,  with  the  other  Princesses, 
and  with  her  own  friends.  She  was  even  able  to  continue  to 
exercise  a  most  liberal  hospitality.  The  Court  officials  daily 
furnished  her  with  10  sterlets,  2  pike,  2  barrels  of  caviare,  2 
barrels  of  herrings,  pastry  of  various  kinds,  and  '  hazel-nut 
butter,'  I  viedro  (about  12  quarts)  of  hydromel,  another  of 
March  beer,  and  4  of  ordinary  beer, — every  sort  of  food  and 
drink  in  fact,  and  extra  provisions  on  feast  days  ;  barrels  of 
aniseed  brandy,  and  casks  of  the  more  ordinary  species. 
Romodanovski  allowed  his  sisters  to  send  her  extra  dainties, 
and  this,  so  it  was  thought,  facilitated  an  exchange  of  secret 
messages.  The  partisans  of  the  ex-Regent  had  always  gained 
easy  access  to  the  monastery,  amongst  the  crowd  of  beggars, 
of  both  sexes,  who  formed  a  privileged  class  at  Moscow. 
At  certain  seasons  of  the  year,  hundreds  of  these  mendicants 
were  daily  received  and  entertained  in  the  great  Obitiels ; 
this  Hoating  population,  full,  generally,  of  malcontents, 
numbered  many  of  the  Strcltsy  widows.-  A  movement  in 
favour  of  the  ex-Regent  certainly  existed,  and  received  co- 
operation in  this  quarter.  One  StreltchiJia,  named  Ofimka 
Kondratieva,  the  widow  of  three  fierce  warriors,  was 
actively  engaged  in  it ;  but  no  plot,  properly  so  called,  was 
ever  revealed. 

The  investigation  proved  nothing,  but  it  exasperated  the 
}'oung  Tsar's  instinctive  violence,  and  hardened  him  yet  more. 
He  was  present  at  the  examinations,  and  in  the  torture- 
chambers.  Is  it  true,  as  some  writers  have  declared,  that 
he  enjoyed  it, — delighting  in  the  sight  of  the  panting  bodies, 
the  long-drawn  anguish,  and  all  the  bitter  incidents  of  suffer- 
ing and  death  t  ^  I  cannot  believe  it.  He  may  have  watched 
it  all,  I  will  admit,  with  curiosity, — with  the  zest  of  a 
man   thirsting  for   new  sensations,  and  inexorably  resolved 

^  Oustrialof,  vol.  iii.  p.  159. 

^  llnJ.,  p.  157. 

*  Kostomarot,  Histojy  of  Russia,  vol.  ii.  p.  516. 


402  PETER  THE  GREAT 

to  see  and  touch  everything  himself, — his  heart  growing  yet 
more  hard,  and  his  imagination  running  wild,  amidst  the 
blood)'  orgy  of  sovereign  justice.  When  the  trial  was 
over,  nothing  would  suffice  him  but  wholesale  executions, 
heads  falling  in  heaps  under  the  executioner's  axe,  forests  of 
gallows,  hecatombs  of  human  life. 

On  the  30th  of  September  169.^,  the  first  procession, 
numbering  200  condemned  men,  took  its  way  to  the  spot 
chosen  for  the  final  scene.  F"ive  of  these  were  beheaded  on 
the  road,  in  front  of  the  Tsar's  house  at  Prcobrajenskoio, 
and  Peter  himself  was  their  executioner.  This  fact  is 
attested  by  numerous  witnesses,  adopted  by  contemporary 
opinion,  and  accepted  by  the  majority  of  historians.^  Leib- 
nitz himself,  in  spite  of  his  weakness  for  the  Reforming 
Sovereign,  expresses  horror  and  indignation  at  the  incident.'^ 
And  Peter  was  not  content  with  wielding  the  a.xe  himself, 
he  insisted  that  those  about  him  should  follow  his  example. 
Galitzin  bungled  at  the  work,  and  caused  his  victims 
terrible  suffering.  Menshikof  and  Romodanovski  were 
more  skilful.  Two  foreigners  only,  Lefort,  and  Blomberg, 
Colonel  of  the  Prcobrajcnskoi'e  regiment,  refused  to  perform 
their  abominable  task.  When  the  doomed  men  reached 
the  Red  Square  at  Moscow,  whither  they  were  taken  in 
sledges,  two  in  each,  holding  lighted  tapers  in  their  hands, 
they  were  placed  in  rows  of  fifty  along  a  tree  trunk  which 
served  for  a  block. 

There  were  144  fresh  executions  on  the  nth  October, 
205  on  the  1 2th,  141  on  the  13th,  109  on  the  17th,  65  on  the 
1 8th,  and  106  on  the  19th.  Two  hundred  Streltsy,  three  of 
them  holding  copies  of  a  petition  to  the  Tsarevna,  were 
hung  before  the  windows  of  Sophia's  apartments  in  the 
Novodievitcliyi  Monastyr.  She  herself  escaped  prett\'  easily. 
She    lost   the   rank   which    she    had   hitherto   retained,  was 

'  Korh,  p.  84.  Guarient,  in  Oustrialof,  vol.  iii.  p.  407  ;  Vockerodt  (Herr- 
mann) p.  29;  Villebois,  Unpublished  Memoirs;  Solovie^,  vol.  xiv.  p.  286; 
Kostomarof,  vol.  ii.  p.  517.  The  first  edition  of  Korb's  book,  the  earliest 
work  which  drew  European  attention  to  these  atrocities,  was  suppressed  in 
consequence  of  a  recjuest  addressed  by  the  Tsar  to  the  Viennese  Court.  Only 
twelve  copies  were  left  in  existence.  An  Knj;lish  translation  of  a  copy  pre- 
served in  the  Frascati  Library  was  published.  I  have  had  the  good  fortune 
of  consulting  one  of  the  very  rare  copies  of  the  original  edition,  which  I  owe  to 
the  kindness  of  M.  Oneguinc,  a  learned  Russian  Bibliophile,  resident  in  Paris, 
whom  I  hereby  gratefully  thank. 

*  Guerrier,  p.  20. 


THE  END  OF  THE  STRELTSY  403 

confined  in  a  narrow  cell,  and  thenceforth  was  only  known 
as  the  Nun  Susanna.  Her  sister  Marfa  was  condemned  to 
the  same  fate,  in  the  Convent  of  the  Assumption  {Oiispicnski), 
in  the  present  Government  of  Vladimir,  where  she  took 
the  name  of  Margaret.  Both  sisters  died  in  their  cloisters, 
the  elder  in  1704,  and  the  younger  in  1707. 

Other  inquiries,  followed  by  wholesale  executions,  took 
place  at  Azof,  and  in  various  parts  of  the  Empire.  The 
unhappy  Streltsy  were  hunted  hither  and  thither.  It  was 
a  war  of  extermination.  At  Moscow,  in  January  1699, 
there  were  more  inquiries  and  more  executions.  Peter's 
absence,  during  November  and  December,  at  Voroncje, 
had  necessitated  a  pause  of  some  weeks.  The  corpses 
which  strewed  the  Square,  were  carried  off  in  thousands, 
and  thrown  on  to  the  neighbouring  fields,  where  they 
rotted  unburied, — and  still  the  axe  worked  busily.  The 
enclosure  in  the  centre  of  the  Red  Square, — the  Moscow 
'  Place  de  la  Greve,' — which  was  generally  devoted  to  the 
executioner's  purpose,  was  all  too  small  for  the  occasion. 
All  round  the  Lobnoie  micsto, — a  sort  of  brick-built  plat- 
form surrounded  by  a  wooden  palisade, — -pikes  bearing 
heads,  and  gallows,  laden  with  their  human  fruit,  stood  in 
ghastly  array,  until  the  year  1727. 

That  blood-stained  spot,  the  Lobnoie  viicsto^  has  a  char- 
acter of  its  own,  and  a  strange  history,  well  worth  knowing, 
which  explains  (I  dare  not  say,  it  justifies)both  the  sanguinary 
scenes  in  which  Peter  insisted  on  playing  so  active  a  part,  and 
that  part  itself,  inexcusable  as  it  appears.  The  origin  of  the 
name  is  quite  uncertain.  Some  authorities  derive  it  from  the 
Latin  word /c?^/'//;//, 'a  high  or  raised  place';  others  ascribe 
it  to  the  Russian  word  lob — 'head' — the  place  where  the  heads 
of  criminals  are  placed.  There  is  a  legend,  too,  that  Adam's 
head  \vas  buried  on  the  spot,  and  here  my  readers  will  begin 
to  perceive  the  strange  and  whimsical  mixture  of  ideas  and 
feelings,  with  which  popular  tradition  has  invested  this 
ghastly  enclosure.  A  place  of  execution  indeed,  but  a  holy 
spot  as  well  !  It  stood,  like  the  LitJiostrote  at  Jerusalem, 
before  one  of  the  six  principal  gates  leading  into  the  Krcml, 
and  had  a  religious  and  national  significance  of  its  own. 
Here  the  relics  and  holy  images  brought  to  Moscow  were 
first  deposited  ;  here,  even  yet,  on  .solemn  occasions,  religious 
ceremonies  were  performed  ;  here  it  was,  that  the  Patriarch 


404  PETER  THE  GREAT 

gave  his  blessing  to  the  Faithful  ;  and  here  too,  the  most 
important  Ukases  were  promulgated,  and  changes  of  ruler 
announced  to  the  peojile.  Here,  in  1550,  Ivan  the  Terrible 
came  to  confess  his  crimes,  and  publicly  ask  pardon  of  his 
subjects.  Here  too  the  mock  Dimitri  proclaimed  his  acces- 
sion, and  here,  a  few  weeks  later,  his  corpse  was  exposed  to 
the  mob,  with  a  mask  on  the  face,  and  a  musical  instrument 
in  the  dead  hand.^ 

Thus  the  executioner's  tools,  and  his  victims'  corpses,  and 
all  the  hideous  paraphernalia  of  criminal  punishment,  did 
not  here  produce  the  impression  which  would  elsewhere  have 
made  them  objects  of  horror  and  repugnance.  For  they 
were  associated  with  the  most  august  incidents  in  the  public 
life,  and  when  Peter  appeared  on  the  scaffold,  axe  in  hand, 
he  neither  derogated  from  his  high  dignity,  nor  made  him- 
self odious  in  the  e)'es  of  his  subjects.  All  he  did  was  to 
carry  out  his  functions  as  their  sujireme  judge.  Any  man, 
at  that  period,  might  turn  executioner,  if  the  occasion  arose. 
When  the  work  was  heavy,  supplementary  assistance  in  the 
bloody  business  was  sought  for  in  the  open  streets,  and  the 
supply  never  failed.  Peter,  without  ceasing  to  be  Tsar, 
could  still  be  the  Tsar's  headsman,  just  as  he  had  been  his 
drummer  and  his  sailor.  He  turned  his  hand  to  the  exe- 
cutioner's duty,  just  as  he  had  previously  turned  it  to  the 
rigging  of  his  ships.  No  one  was  shocked  by  his  action  nor 
blamed  him  for  it.     He  was  much  more  likely  to  be  praised! 

A  knowledge  of  these  facts  is  essential  to  a  thorough 
understanding  of  men  and  things  in  this  period  of  Russian 
history,  which  cannot,  as  a  rule,  be  interpreted  or  judged 
according  to  our  knowledge  of  a  corresponding  period  in  the 
West.  Peter  had  made  up  his  mind  to  suppress  the  Stni/sy, 
and  did  what  was  necessary  to  ensure  that  object.  The 
means  he  employed  were  terrible,  but,  in  his  country,  terror 
had  long  been  a  recognised  method  of  procedure.  So  the 
Strcltsy  disappeared.  All  those  on  whom  he  laid  hands  in 
Moscow,  either  lost  their  lives,  or  were  sent  into  the  most 
distant  parts  of  Siberia  ;  their  wives  and  children  were  dri\en 
out  of  the  capital,  and  no  one  was  allowed  to  give  them 
either  food  or  work.^  'What!'  we  cry,  '  were  they  doomed 
to  die  of  hunger?'     More  than  probably.     The  very  name 

*  I'ylaiL-l,  Old  Mostow,  pp.  72,  412,  etc. 

*  GoTil-m'i^yoit/ua/,  Kii^li,!)  edition,  p.   193. 


THE  END  OF  THE  STRELTSY  405 

of  the  hated  corps  was  proscribed.  The  provincial  war- 
bands,  whose  docihty  had  disarmed  the  Tsar's  anger,  were 
reduced  to  the  rank  of  private  soldiery.  Thus  the  way  was 
cleared  in  every  quarter,  and  the  creation  of  the  new  army, 
which  was  to  be  the  opening  effort  of  Peter's  fresh  start,  and 
one  of  a  distinctly  European  character,  was  not  only  rendered 
possible,  but  became  urgent  and  indispensable.  The  Strcltsy 
had  disappeared,  but  with  them  the  army  had  vanished. 
And  before  three  months  were  out,  Peter  became  aware 
that  he  had  gone  too  far  and  too  fast,  and  was  fain  to 
call  some  of  his  dead  back  into  life.  At  the  Battle  of  Narva, 
in  1700,  several  Strcltsy  Regiments  fought  in  the  Russian 
army.  These  were  the  provincial  bands  whose  organisation 
and  title  had  been  taken  from  them  by  a  ukase,  dated  i  ith 
September  1698,  and  reconferred  by  another,  dated  20th 
January  1699.^  In  1702,  the  Tsar  himself  ordered  the  forma- 
tion, on  the  old  system,  of  four  regiments  of  Muscovite  Strcltsy, 
at  Dorogobouje,  and  a  similar  order  was  given  in  1704. 
These  were  concessions  to  the  necessities  of  the  Swedish 
war.  But  in  1705,  after  the  revolt  at  Astrakhan,  in  which 
the  remnants  of  the  old  undisciplined  war-bands  were  in- 
volved, their  final  and  complete  destruction  was  resolved  on. 
Once  more,  long  files  of  prisoners  moved  along  the  Moscow 
road,  and  hundreds  of  fresh  executions,  on  the  Red  Square, 
completed  the  work  of  extermination. 

Ill 

It  was  the  prospect  of  the  great  Northern  war  which  in- 
duced Peter  to  strew  the  Red  Square  with  the  corpses  of  his 
soldiery.  The  chances  of  that  same  war  led  him  to  St. 
Petersburg.  When  he  first  threw  down  the  gauntlet  to 
Sweden,  he  turned  his  eyes  on  Livonia  —  on  Narva  and 
Riga.  But  Livonia  was  so  well  defended  that  he  was 
driven  northwards,  towards  Ingria.  He  moved  thither 
grudgingly,  sending,  in  the  first  instance,  Apraxin,  who 
turned  the  easily-conquered  province  into  a  desert.  It  was 
not  for  some  time,  and  gropingly,  as  it  were,  that  the  young 
Sovereign  began  to  see  his  way,  and  finally  turned  his  atten- 
tion, and  his  longings,  to  the  mouth  of  the  Neva.  In  former 
years,  Gustavus  Adolphus  had  realised  the  strategical  im- 

^  Milioukof,  Peter  the  Great's  Refonit  (Si.  I'tlersburg,  1892),  p.  141. 


4o6  PETER  THE  GREAT 

portancc  of  a  position  which  his  successor,  Charles  xil.,  (\\d 
not  deem  worthy  of  consideration,  and  had  himself  studied 
all  its  approaches.  Peter  not  only  took  it  to  be  valuable 
from  the  military  and  commercial  point  of  view  :  he  also 
found  it  most  attractive,  and  would  fain  have  never  left  it. 
He  was  more  at  home  there  than  anywhere  else,  and  the 
historical  le.cjends,  according  to  which  it  was  true  Russian 
ground,  filled  him  with  emotion.  No  one  knows  what  in- 
spired this  fondness  on  his  part.  It  may  have  been  the 
vague  resemblance  of  the  marsh)'  flats  to  the  lowlands  of 
Holland  ;  it  may  have  been  the  stirring  of  some  ancestral 
instinct.  According  to  a  legend,  accepted  by  Nestor,  it  was 
by  the  mouth  of  the  Neva  that  the  earliest  Norman  Con- 
querors of  the  country  pas.sed  on  their  journeys  across  the 
Varegian  Sea — //leir  own  sea — and  so  to  Rome  !  Peter 
would  seem  to  have  desired  to  take  up  the  thread  of  that 
tradition,  nine  centuries  old  ;  and  the  story  of  his  own  foun- 
dation of  the  town  has  become  legendary  and  epic.  One 
popular  description  represents  him  as  snatching  a  halbert 
from  one  of  his  soldiers,  cutting  two  strips  of  turf,  and  laying 
them  crosswise  with  the  words,  '  Here  there  shall  be  a  town  ! ' 
P\)undation  stones  were  evidently  lacking,  and  sods  had  to 
take  their  place!  Then,  dropping  the  halbert,  he  seized  a 
spade,  and  began  the  first  embankment.  At  that  moment 
an  eagle  appeared,  hovering  over  the  Tsar's  head.  It  was 
struck  by  a  shot  from  a  musket.  Peter  took  the  wounded 
bird,  set  it  on  his  wrist,  and  departed  in  a  boat  to  inspect  the 
neighbourhood.^     This  occurred  on  the  i6th  of  May  1703. 

History  adds,  that  the  Swedish  prisoners  employed  on  the 
work  died  in  thousands.  The  most  indispensable  tools  were 
lacking.  There  were  no  wheelbarrows,  and  the  earth  was 
carried  in  the  corners  of  men's  clothing.  A  wooden  fort  was 
first  built,  on  the  island  bearing  the  Finnish  name  of  lanni- 
Saari  (Hare  Island).  This  was  the  future  citadel  of  St.  Peter 
and  St.  Paul.  Then  came  a  wooden  church,  and  the  modest 
cottage  which  was  to  be  Peter's  first  {)alace.  Near  these,  the 
following  year,  there  rose  a  Lutheran  Church,  ultimately  re- 
moved to  the  left  bank  of  the  river,  into  the  Liteinaia  quarter, 
and  also  a  tavern,  the  famous  inn  of  the  Tour  Frigates,  which 
did  duty  as  a  Town  Hall  for  a  long  time  before  it  became  a 
place  of  diplomatic   meeting.     Then  the  cluster  of  motlcst 

'   P)  laief,  Old  St.  Petersburg,  p.   i6,  eic. 


ST.  PETERSBURG  407 

buildings  was  augmented  by  the  erection  of  a  bazaar.  The 
Tsar's  collaborators  gathered  round  him,  in  cottages  much 
like  his  own,  and  the  existence  of  St.  Petersburg  became  an 
accomplished  fact. 

Ikit,  up  to  the  time  of  the  Battle  of  Poltava,  Peter  never 
thought  of  making  St.  Petersburg  his  capital.  It  was  enough 
for  him  to  feel  he  had  a  fortress  and  a  port.  He  was  not 
sufficiently  sure  of  his  mastery  over  the  neighbouring  coun- 
tries, not  certain  enough  of  being  able  to  retain  his  conquest, 
to  desire  to  make  it  the  centre  of  his  Government  and  his 
own  permanent  residence.  This  idea  was  not  definitely 
accepted  till  after  his  great  victory.^  His  final  decision  has 
been  bitterly  criticised,  especially  by  foreign  historians  ;  it 
has  been  severely  judged  and  remorselessly  condemned. 
Before  expressing  any  opinion  of  my  own  on  the  subject, 
I  should  like  to  sum  up  the  considerations  which  have  been 
put  forward  to  support  this  unfavourable  verdict. 

The  great  victory,  we  are  told,  diminished  the  strategic 
importance  of  St.  Petersburg,  and  almost  entirely  extin- 
guished its  value  as  a  port ;  while  its  erection  into  the 
capital  city  of  the  Empire  was  never  anything  but  mad- 
ness. Peter,  being  now  the  indisputable  master  of  the 
Baltic  shores,  had  nothing  to  fear  from  any  Swedish  at- 
tack in  the  Gulf  of  Finland.  Before  any  attempt  in  tnat 
direction,  the  Swedes  were  certain  to  try  to  recover  Narva 
or  Riga.  If,  in  later  years,  they  turned  their  eyes  to  St. 
Petersburg,  it  was  only  because  that  town  had  acquired 
undue  and  unmerited  political  importance.  It  was  easy 
of  attack,  and  difficult  to  defend.  '1  here  was  no  possibility 
of  concentrating  any  large  number  of  troops  there,  for  the 
whole  country,  forty  leagues  round,  was  a  barren  desert.  In 
1788,  Catherine  II.  complained  that  her  capital  was  too  near 
the  Swedish  frontier,  and  too  much  exposed  to  sudden 
movements,  such  as  that  which  Gustavus  III.  very  nearly 
succeeded  in  carrying  out.  Here  we  have  the  military  side 
of  the  question. 

From  the  commercial  point  of  view,  St.  Petersburg,  we  are 
assured,  did  command  a  valuable  system  of  river  communi- 
cation,— but  that  commanded  by  Riga  was  far  superior.  The 
Livonian,  Esthonian,  and  Courland  ports  of  Riga,  Libau,  and 
Revel, all  at  an  equal  distance  from  St  Petersburg  and  Moscow, 

^  See  the  Tsar's  letter  to  Apraxin  (July  9,  1709),  Caliinet  No.  i.  Book  28. 
27 


4o8  PETER  THE  GREAT 

ami  far  less  removed  from  the  great  German  commercial 
centres,  ciijojed  a  superior  climate,  and  were,  subsequent  to  the 
conquest  of  the  above-mentioned  Provinces,  the  natural  points 
of  contact  between  Russia  and  the  West.  An  eloquent  proof 
of  this  fact  may  be  observed,  nowadays,  in  the  constant 
increase  of  their  commerce,  and  the  corresponding  decrease 
of  that  of  St.  Petersburg,  which  has  been  artificially  developed 
and  fostered. 

Besides  this,  the  Port  of  St.  Petersburg,  during  the  lifetime 
of  its  founder,  never  was  anything  but  a  mere  project.  Peter's 
ships  were  moved  from  Kronslot  to  Kronstadt.  Between  St. 
Petersburg  and  Kronstadt,  the  Neva  was  not,  in  those  days, 
more  than  eight  feet  deep,  and  Manstcin  tells  us  that  all  ships 
built  at  Petersburg  had  to  be  dragged  by  means  of  machines 
fitted  with  cables  to  Kronstadt,  where  they  received  their 
guns.  Once  these  had  been  taken  on  board,  the  vessels 
could  not  get  up  stream  again.  The  Port  of  Kronstadt  was 
closed  by  ice  for  six  months  out  of  the  twelve,  and  lay  in 
such  a  position  that  no  sailing  ship  could  leave  it  unless 
the  wind  blew  from  the  east.  There  was  so  little  salt  in  its 
waters,  that  the  ship  timbers  rotted  in  a  very  short  time, 
and  besides,  there  were  no  oaks  in  the  surrounding  forests, 
and  all  such  timber  had  to  brought  from  Kasan.  Peter  was 
so  well  aware  of  all  these  drawbacks,  that  he  sought,  and 
found,  a  more  convenient  spot  for  his  shipbuilding  yards,  at 
Rogerwick,  in  Esthonia,  four  leagues  from  Revel.  But  here 
he  found  difficulty  in  protecting  the  anchorage  from  the 
effects  of  hurricanes,  and  from  the  insults  of  his  enemies. 
He  hoped  to  ensure  this  by  means  of  two  piers,  built  on  wooden 
caissons  filled  with  stones.  He  thinned  the  forests  of 
Livonia  and  Esthonia,  to  construct  it,  and  finally,  the 
winds  and  the  waves  having  carried  everything  away  twice 
over,  the  work  was  utterly  abandoned.  On  the  other  hand, 
and  from  the  very  outset,  the  commercial  activity  of  St. 
Petersburg  was  hampered,  by  the  fact  that  it  was  the  Tsar's 
Capital.  The  presence  of  the  Court  made  living  dear, 
and  the  consequent  expense  of  labour  was  a  heavj-  drawback 
to  the  export  trade,  which,  by  its  nature,  called  for  a  good 
deal  of  manual  exertion.  According  to  a  Dutch  Resident  of 
that  period,  a  wooden  cottage,  very  inferior  to  that  inhabited 
by  a  peasant  in  the  Low  Countries,  cost  from  800  to  looo 
florins  a  )'ear  at  St.  Petersburg.    A  shopkeeper  at  Archangel 


ST.  PETERSBURG  409 

could  live  comfortably  on  a  quarter  of  that  sum.  The  cost  of 
transport,  which  amounted  to  between  nine  and  ten  kopecks 
a  pood,  between  Moscow  and  Archangel,  five  to  six  between 
laroslav  and  Archangel,  and  three  or  four  between  Vologda 
and  Archangel,  came  to  eighteen,  twenty,  and  thirty  kopecks 
a  pood  in  the  case  of  merchandise  sent  from  any  of  these 
places  to  St.  Petersburg.  This  accounts  for  the  opposition 
of  the  foreign  merchants  at  Archangel,  to  the  request 
that  they  should  remove  to  St.  Petersburg.  Peter  settled  the 
matter  in  characteristic  fashion,  by  forbidding  any  trade  in 
hemp,  flax,  leather,  or  corn,  to  pass  through  Archangel. 
This  rule,  though  somewhat  slackened,  in  17 14,  at  the  request 
of  the  States-General  of  Holland,  remained  in  force  during  the 
great  Tsar's  reign.  In  1718,  hemp,  and  some  other  articles 
of  commerce,  were  allowed  free  entrance  into  the  Port 
of  Archangel,  but  only  on  condition  that  two-thirds  of 
all  exports  should  be  sent  to  St.  Petersburg.  This  puts 
the  case  from  the  maritime  and  commercial  point  of 
view. 

As  a  capital  city,  St.  Petersburg,  we  are  told  again,  was 
ill-placed  on  the  banks  of  the  Neva,  not  only  for  the  reasons 
already  given,  but  for  others,  geographical,  ethnical  and 
climatic,  which  exist  even  in  the  present  day,  and  which 
make  its  selection  an  outrage  on  common  sense.  Was  it 
not,  we  are  asked,  a  most  extraordinary  whim  which  induced 
a  Russian  to  found  the  capital  of  his  Slavonic  Empire 
among  the  Finns,  against  the  Swedes,^ — to  centralise  the 
administration  of  a  huge  extent  of  country  in  its  remotest 
corner, — to  retire  from  Poland  and  Germany  on  the  plea  of 
drawing  nearer  to  Europe,  and  to  force  every  one  about  him, 
officials,  Court,  and  Diplomatic  Corps,  to  inhabit  one  of  the 
most  inhospitable  spots,  under  one  of  the  least  clement  skies, 
he  could  possibly  have  discovered  ?  The  whole  place  was  a 
marsh, — the  Finnish  word  Nroa  means  '  mud ' ;  the  sole 
inhabitants  of  the  neighbouring  forests  were  packs  of  wolves. 
In  17 14,  during  a  winter  night,  two  sentries,  posted  before 
the  cannon  foundry,  were  devoured.  Even  nowadays,  the 
traveller,  once  outside  the  town,  plunges  into  a  desert.  Far 
away  in  every  direction  the  great  plain  stretches ;  not  a 
steeple,  not  a  tree,  not  a  head  of  cattle,  not  a  sign  of  life, 
whether  human  or  animal.     There  is  no  pasturage,  no  pos- 

'  Custine,  La  Ktissie  (Paris,  1843),  ^o'-  '•  P-  204. 


4IO  PETER  THE  GREAT 

sibilit\-  of  cullivatioii, — fruit,  vcj^ctables,  and  even  corn,  arc 
all  bnjui^ht  from  a  distance.  The  ground  is  in  a  soit  of 
intermediate  condition  between  the  sea  and  tei-ra  firma. 
Up  to  Catherine's  reign  inundations  were  chronic  in  their 
occurrence.  On  the  iith  of  September  1706,  Peter  drew 
from  his  pocket  the  measure  he  always  carried  about  him, 
and  convinced  himself  that  there  were  twenty-one  inches  of 
water  above  the  floors  of  his  cottage.  In  all  directions  he  saw 
men,  women,  and  children  clinging  to  the  wreckage  of  build- 
ings, which  was  being  carried  down  the  river.  He  described 
his  im])ressions  in  a  letter  to  Mcnshikof,dated  from'  Paradise,'^ 
and  declared  it  was  '  extremely  amusing.'  It  may  be  doubted 
whether  he  found  many  persons  to  share  his  delight.  Com- 
munications with  the  town,  now  rendered  easy  by  rail- 
ways, were,  in  those  days,  not  only  difficult,  but  dangerous. 
Campredon,  when  he  went  from  Moscow  to  St.  Petersburg, 
in  April  1723,  spent  1200  roubles.  He  lost  part  of  his 
luggage,  eight  of  his  horses  were  drowned,  and,  after  having 
travelled  for  four  weeks,  he  reached  his  destination,  very  ill. 
Peter  himself,  who  arrived  before  the  French  Diplomat,  had 
been  obliged  to  ride  part  of  the  way,  and  to  swim  his  horse 
across  the  rivers ! 

But  in  spite  of  all  these  considerations,  the  importance  of 
which  I  am  far  from  denying,  I  am  inclined  to  think  Peter's 
choice  a  wise  one.  Nobody  can  wonder  that  the  idea  of 
retaining  Moscow  as  his  capital  was  most  repugnant  to  him. 
The  existence  of  his  work  in  those  hostile  surroundings, — in 
a  place  which,  to  this  day,  has  remained  obstinately  reaction- 
ary,— could  never  have  been  anything  but  precarious  and 
uncertain.  It  must,  after  his  death  at  least,  if  not  during  his 
life,  have  been  at  the  mercy  of  those  popular  insurrections 
before  which  the  sovereign  power,  as  established  in  the 
Kreml,  had,  already,  so  frequently  bowed.  W'hen  Peter 
carried  Muscovy  out  of  her  former  existence,  and  beyond 
her  ancient  frontiers,  he  was  logically  f(;rced  to  treat  the 
.seat  of  his  Government  in  the  same  manner.  His  new 
undertaking  resembled,  both  in  asj^ect  and  character,  a 
marching  and  fighting  formation,  directed  towards  the 
West.  The  leader's  place,  and  that  of  his  chief  residence, 
was  naturally  indicated,  at  the  head  of  his  column.  This 
once  granted,  and   the  principle  of  the  translation  of  the 

'  Oustriiilof,  vol.  iv.  p.  273. 


ST.  PETERSBURG  411 

capital  to  the  Western  extremity  of  the  Tsar's  newly  ac- 
quired possessions,  admitted,  the  advantages  offered  by 
Ingria  would  appear  to  me  to  outweigh  all  the  drawbacks 
previously  referred  to.  The  province  wa.s,  at  that  period, 
virgin  soil,  sparsely  inhabited  by  a  Finnish  population,  pos- 
sessing neither  cohesion  nor  historical  consistency,  and,  con- 
sequently, docile  and  easily  assimilated.  Everywhere  else, 
— all  along  the  Baltic  coast,  in  Esthonia,  in  Carelia,  and  in 
Courland, — though  the  Swedes  might  be  driven  out,  the 
Germans  still  remained,  firmly  settled, — the  neighbourhood 
of  their  native  country,  and  of  the  springs  of  Teutonic 
culture,  enduing  them  with  an  invincible  power  of  resistance. 
Riga,  in  the  present  day,  after  nearly  two  centuries  of 
Russian  government,  is  a  thoroughly  German  town.  In 
St.  Petersburg,  Russia,  as  a  country,  became  European  and 
cosmopolitan, — but  the  city  itself  is  essentially  Russian, 
and  the  Finnish  element  in  its  neighbourhood  counts  for 
nothing. 

In  this  matter,  though  Peter  may  not  have  clearly  felt 
and  thought  it  out,  he  was  actuated  by  the  mighty  and  un- 
erring instinct  of  his  genius,  I  am  willing  to  admit  that  here, 
as  in  everything  else,  there  was  a  certain  amount  of  whim, 
and  perhaps  some  childish  desire  to  ape  Amsterdam.  I  will 
even  go  further,  and  acknowledge  that  the  manner  in  which 
he  carried  out  his  plan  was  an\'thing  but  reasonable. 
2CO,ooo  labourers,  we  are  told,  died  during  the  construction 
of  the  new  city,  and  the  Russian  nobles  ruined  themselves 
to  build  palaces  which  soon  fell  out  of  occupation.  But  an 
abyss  was  opened,  between  the  past  the  Reformer  had 
doomed,  and  the  future  on  which  he  had  set  his  heart,  and  the 
national  life,  thus  violently  forced  into  a  new  channel,  was 
stamped,  superficially  at  first,  but  more  and  more  dccpl}',  by 
degrees,  with  the  Western  and  European  character  he 
desired  to  impart. 

Moscow,  down  to  the  present  day,  has  preserved  a  religious, 
almost  a  monastic  air  ;  at  every  street  corner,  chapels  attract 
the  passers-by,  and  the  local  population,  even  at  its  busiest, 
crosses  itself,  and  bends,  as  it  passes  before  the  sacred 
pictures  which  rouse  its  devotion  at  every  turn.  St.  Peters- 
burg, from  the  very  earliest  days,  presented  a  different, 
and  quite  a  secular  appearance.  At  Moscow,  no  public 
performance    of    profane    music    was    permitted.       At    St. 


413  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Petersburg  the  Tsar's  German  musicians  played  every  day, 
on  the  balct)n\-  of  liis  tavern.  Towards  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  centur}-,  the  new  cit)'  boasted  a  French  Theatre, 
and  an  Italian  Opera,  and  Schlozer  noted  that  Divine 
Service  was  performed  in  fourteen  languages !  Modern 
Russia,  governed,  educated,  to  a  certain  extent,  intellectually 
speaking,  emancipated,  and  relatively  liberal,  could  not  have 
come  into  existence,  nor  grown  in  stature,  elsewhere. 

And,  to  conclude,  Peter  was  able  to  effect  this  singular 
change  without  doing  too  great  violence  to  the  historical 
traditions  of  his  country.  From  the  earliest  days  of  Russian 
history,  the  capital  had  been  removed  from  place  to  place, 
— from  Novgorod  to  Kief,  from  Kief  to  Vladimir,  from 
Vladimir  to  Moscow.  This  phenomenon  was  the  consequence 
of  the  immense  area  of  the  national  territory,  and  the  want 
of  consistency  in  the  elements  of  the  national  life.  From 
the  beginning  to  the  end  of  an  evolution  which  lasted 
centuries,  the  centre  of  gravity  of  the  disjointed,  scattered, 
and  floating  forces  of  ancient  Russia,  perpetually  changed 
its  place.  Thus  the  creation  of  St.  Petersburg  was  nothing 
but  the  working  out  of  a  problem  in  dynamics.  The 
struggle  with  Sweden,  the  conquest  of  the  Baltic  provinces, 
and  the  yet  more  important  conquest  of  a  position  in  the 
European  world,  naturally  turned  the  whole  current  of  the 
national  energies  and  life  in  that  direction.  Peter  desired 
to  perpetuate  this  course.  I  am  inclined  to  think  he  acted 
wisely. 


CHAPTER     II 

MORALS — HABITS   AND   CUSTOMS 

I.  Morals  —  The  Slavophile  Theory  of  the  morals  of  Ancient  Russia  —  The 
reality  —  Coarseness  and  savagery  —  Brigandage  —  Brutal  vulgarity  of 
domestic  habits  —  Drunkenness  —  Sanguinary  scuflles  —  Absence  of  any 
moral  ideal — Peter's  work — The  moral  foundation  ready  to  his  liand — 
Inconsistency  and  paltriness  of  his  first  attempts — Dress  reform — Ulterior 
progress — The  Reform  of  the  Calendar — Liberal  tendencies  of  the  new 
regime — The  great  domestic  Reform  —  The  suppression  of  the  Terem  — 
Whither  the  women  were  to  go  —  Peter  creates  society  by  Ukase  — 
'  Assendjlies  '  —  Failure,  as  far  as  sociability  was  concerned  —  Causes  of 
this  failure — Peter  himself  too  little  of  a  man  of  the  world — No  Court  to 
give  tone  to  society  —  The  tone  of  the  Sovereign's  surroundings  very 
different  from  that  of  Versailles — Coarse  Habits — Official  entertainments 
— Balls  in  the  Summer  Garden — The  Diplomatic  Corps  received  at 
Peterhof — Filthy  and  dissolute  habits  —  Superficiality  of  the  change  —  A 
great  moral  revolution — The  school  of  example. 
II.  Ed  Ufa  lion  —  Scholastic  establishments  —  Bold  and  far-stretching  theories — 
Weakness  and  poverty  of  their  practical  application  —  C.eneral  and  pro- 
fessional education — Primary  and  high-class  schools — Lack  of  pupils  — 
V'oung  men  sent  abroad — indifferent  results — Russia  still  dependent  on 
Europe— The  Academy  of  Sciences— The  real  teaching  of  the  great  reign 
— Example  again. 
HI.  IntelUctital  be,^nniugs — The  new  language  —  Books  —  Archives  and  a 
Library  —  Museums  —  Free  entrance  —  A  School  of  Fine  Arts  —  The 
Theatre — The  Press — General  view. 


The  Slavophile  writers  of  the  present  clay  are  fond  of  paint- 
ing the  habits  and  customs  of  Ancient  Russia  in  the  most 
brilliant  colours,  heightened  by  their  gloomy  description  of 
contemporary  existence  amongst  Western  nations.  This 
IS  the  last  refuge  of  a  theory  which  finds  it  hard  to 
hold  its  own  m  every  other  fielcl.  It  has  grown  more  and 
more-difficult,  in  course  of  time,  to  claim  all  the  elements  of 
original  culture, —  letters,  arts,  and  sciences, — with  which, 
according  to  her  adorers'  ideal,  the  Russia  of  the  i6th  and 


414  PETER  THE  GREAT 

17th  centuries  should  have  been  endowed.  But,  these 
zealots  say,  though  her  inhabitants  could  not  read,  their 
morals  were  beyond  all  reproach.  Despite  the  triple 
corruption  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Renaissance,  and  the 
Modern  Period,  they  had  remained  pure,  and  even  holy. 
We  shall  see. 

It  is  a  singular  fact  that  none  of  the  witnesses  of  this 
idyllic  condition  of  existence,  nor  even  the  actors  in  it,  seem 
to  have  been  conscious  of  its  charm.  Foreign  testimony, 
such  as  that  of  Olcarius,  Margeret,  and  Fletcher,  may  be 
doubted.  lUit  what  are  we  to  think  of  that  passage  in  the 
Memoirs  of  Jciiaboujski,  to  which  I  have  already  alluded, 
and  which  describes  the  current  incidents  of  the  day  as  a 
mere  calendar  of  criminal  procedure. 

In  November  1699,  Prince  Feodor  Hot^tovski  was 
knoutcd,  in  one  of  the  Moscow  Squares,  for  having  sold  a 
single  landed  property  to  several  purchasers.  In  December, 
two  judges  at  Vladimir,  Dimitri  Divof,  »  and  lakovlef 
Kolytchef,  were  flogged  for  breach  of  trust.  Kol\-tchef  had 
been  corrupted  by  means  of  a  sum  of  twenty  roubles,  and 
a  barrel  of  brandy !  That  same  year,  a  gentleman  named 
Zoubof  was  prosecuted  for  highway  robbery.  A  Voivoide 
of  Tsaritsine,  named  Ivan  Bartenief,  accepted  bribes,  and 
carried  off  married  women  and  young  girls  to  be  his 
mistresses.  Prince  Ivan  Shei'diakof  was  convicted  of 
robbery  and  murder.^ 

Armed  brigandage  was  such  an  ingrained  custom,  at  that 
period,  that  all  Peter's  energy  was  powerless  to  suppress  it. 
In  1 7 10,  troops  had  to  be  called  out  to  protect  the 
immediate  neighbourhood  of  the  Capital.  In  17 19,  the 
judicial  bcxly  was  warned  of  the  presence  of  well-armed 
bands  numbering  from  100  to  200  robbers,  in  the  districts  of 
Novgorod  and  of  Mojaisk.-  The  Saxon  Resident  writes,  in 
1723:  *A  body  of  9000  robbers,  led  by  a  Russian  half-pay 
Colonel,  had  planned  to  burn  the  Admiralty  and  other 
buildings  in  St.  Petersburg,  and  to  massacre  the  foreigners. 
36  of  these  have  been  taken  prisoners,  and  impaled,  or  hung 
by  the  ribs  .   .  .  We  are  on  the  brink  of  some  unpleasant 

'  Jeliaboujski,  pp.  129-130;  Korb,  pp.  77,  78.  Compare  Kostomarof, 
Picture  of  Russian  Domestic  Life  and  Habits  in  the  16///  and  \']th  Centuries, 
p|i.  99- 1 28;  lliclaicf,  lessons  on  Russian  Law,  p.  464,  etc.  ;  Goltsef,  Russian 
Laws  and  Customs  in  the  18M  Century,  p.  17. 

''  Solovicf,  vol.xvi.  p.  251. 


MORALS— HABITS  AND  CUSTOMS  415 

outbreak  ;  the  popular  misery  is  daily  increasing,  the  streets 
are  full  of  people  trying  to  sell  their  children  ;  orders  have 
been  issued  that  nothing  should  be  given  to  beggars.  What 
can  they  do  but  become  highway  robbers?'^ 

These  robbers,  who  had  taken  up  arms  against  the 
foreigners,  were  the  authentic  representatives  of  Old  Russia, 
and  I  cannot  perceive  anything  idyllic  about  them,  nor 
about  the  principal  and  most  characteristic  features  of  past 
times — the  savagery  and  coarseness — presented  in  their 
l)ersons.  Neugebauer,  German  tutor  to  the  young  Tsare- 
vitch  Alexis,  was  discharged,  in  1702,  because  he  ventured 
to  object  to  his  pupil's  habit  of  emptying  his  own  plate  into 
the  dishes  intended  for  other  guests.  There  was  no 
sociability  in  the  nature  of  a  people  so  swayed  by  Byzantine 
asceticism  as  to  reckon  knowledge  heresy,  art  a  scandal,  and 
music,  singing,  and  dancing,  an  offence  to  the  Almighty. 
Love  itself,  even  hallowed  by  religious  ties,  was  looked  on 
with  doubt  and  scruple.  Possoshkof,  in  the  true  spirit  of 
the  Domostroi,  advises  all  newly  married  couples  to  spend 
their  two  first  nights  in  prayer, — the  first  to  drive  away  the 
demons,  and  the  second  to  do  honour  to  the  Patriarchs  ! 
Women  of  the  aristocratic  class  wasted  their  existences 
within  the  padlocked  doors  of  the  tereni.  The  men 
entertained  themselves  with  their  masculine  surroundings, 
consisting  of  needy  gentlemen,  whom  they  sometimes  petted, 
and  often  thrashed, — jesters,  whose  jokes  were  generally  of 
the  vilest  description, — baJiars  or  scacotchniks,  who  told 
ridiculous  stories, — doniratcheis,  who  played  on  a  sort  of 
guitar,  called  the  donira,  and  droned  out  religious  chants, — 
and  sometimes,  but  much  less  often,  skomorohi,  or  jugglers, 
already  looked  at  askance,  and  even  prosecuted, — the  civil 
power  backing  the  attempts  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorit)'  to 
repress  profane  delights.  The  real  pleasure  of  every  man, 
from  the  Boyard  to  the  peasant,  was  drink.  Every  festive 
gathering  was  a  scene  of  drunkenness,  which  too  often 
culminated  in  rough,  and  often  bloody  scuffles.^ 

On  every  rung  of  the  social  ladder,  there  was  the  same 
utter  absence  of  morality,  of  any  sentiment  of  self-respect, 
honour,  or  duty.     Free  men,  according  to  Korb,  cared  little 

^  Sbornik,  vol.  iii.  pp.  354,  360. 

*  Zabielin,  JJontesiic  History  of  the  Tsarinas,  p.  397,  etc.  ;  Dibiatine,  Con- 
iribntions  to  the  History  of  Russian  Law,  p.  560,  etc. 


4i6  PETER  THE  GREAT 

for  their  liberty,  and  williiif^ly  accepted  serfdom.  Informers 
swarmed  in  every  class,  and  ever}\vhcre  there  was  the  same 
dead  le\cl  of  idleness,  indifference,  and  meanness.  When,  in 
1705,  Shcrcmctief,  the  best  of  Peter's  Russian  Generals,  was 
sent  to  Astrakhan  to  suppress  a  revolt,  the  growth  of  which 
threatened  the  living  forces  of  the  country,  he  stopped  at 
Kasan,  and  turned  his  whole  mind  to  getting  leave  to  return 
to  Moscow,  and  there  spend  the  winter  and  the  Easter 
festivities.  Nothing  but  the  Emperor's  threats  induced  him 
to  resume  his  journey.^  Honour,  duty,  ambition,  and  even 
courage,  were  novelties,  the  knowledge  of  which  Peter,  as  he 
himself  boasted,  was  forced  to  propagate  amongst  his  sub- 
jects." He  had  to  tear  the  degrading  lesson  of  their  national 
proverb,  '  Flight  is  not  a  very  noble  thing,  but  it  is  a  very 
safe  one,'  out  of  their  hearts  and  minds.  His  methods  of 
terror  and  of  summary  justice, — as  when  he  hung  a  whole 
company  of  flying  soldiers  under  the  walls  of  Noteburg,  in 
1703, — would  certainly  not  have  succeeded,  alone,  as  they 
did,  to  a  certain  extent,  succeed.  But  he  found  a  moral 
foundation,  long  buried  in  those  darkened  and  degraded 
souls, — their  fanatical  love  of  home,  their  power  ot  endur- 
ance, their  limitless  docility,  and  immense  self-sacrifice.  The 
work,  apart  from  these,  was  all  his  own. 

It  was  by  no  means  a  perfect  work.  It  bore  traces  of  all 
the  faults  and  weaknesses  inherent  in  the  Workman.  When 
the  Reformer  turned  his  first  attention  to  clipping  his  sub- 
jects' beards,  and  reforming  their  costume,  he  overlooked 
far  more  pressing  and  serious  matters.  The  dress  worn  in 
Russia,  at  the  end  of  the  17th  century,  was,  indeed,  both 
inconvenient  and  ungraceful.  But  its  distinctive  features, 
and  the  fulness  and  number  of  the  garments  placed  one 
above  the  other,  were  justified  by  the  conditions  of  the 
climate.  Over  his  embroidered  shirt  and  wide  trousers, 
tucked  into  his  boots,  the  Russian  gentleman  wore  a. jou/ya^i, 
or  waistcoat,  of  coloured  silk,  and  a  closely  fitting  kaftan^ 
reaching  to  the  knees,  with  a  straight  collar  of  velvet,  satin 
or  brocade.  The  sleeves,  which  were  long  and  wide,  were 
fastened  at  the  wrist  with  buttor.s,  made  of  precious  stones 
of  more  or  less  value.     This  was  his  indoor  garb.     When  he 

'  Oustrialof,  vol.  i%-.  p.  493. 

'^  .See  his  conversation  wiili  ihc  Duke  of  I  It>lstcin  ill  1722,  reported  by  Bergliolz, 
Biisc kings- Ma^azi II,  vol.  xx.  ji.  3S7. 


MORALS— HABITS  AND  CUSTOMS  417 

went  out,  he  added  a  belt  of  some  Persian  material,  and  over 
his  kaftan,  he  wore  a  feriaz, — a  long,  wide  velvet  garment, 
straight  cut  and  collarless,  buttoned  down  the  front  from  the 
top  to  the  bottom,  and  always  with  long  and  wide  sleeves. 
Over  \\\Q.fcriaz  he  wore,  in  summer,  the  opachen  or  oJiabeu, 
a  wide  mantle  of  precious  stuff,  falling  to  his  heels,  with  long 
sleeves,  and  a  square  collar;  or,  in  the  autumn,  the  odnoriadka, 
a  warmer  garment  of  hairwoven  material  or  cloth  ;  while,  in 
winter,  he  was  robed  in  the  shonba, — a  fur-lined  pelisse.  A 
full  and  thick  beard  was  the  natural  complement  of  this 
dress,  and  was  equally  well  suited  to  the  needs  of  the  Russian 
climate.  The  aesthetic  point  of  view  need  not  come  into 
this  discussion.  Fashion,  in  all  times,  and  every  country, 
has  alwa}'s  disregarded  it,  and  to  this  day  the  St.  Petersburg 
coachmen  thicken  their  waists  by  means  of  cushions,  which 
they  consider  a  most  desirable  addition  to  their  personal 
appearance. 

This  reform,  like  most  of  those  to  which  Peter's  name 
has  been  attached,  grew  out  of  the  general  evolution  which 
had  carried  Russia  westward,  ever  since  the  days  of  i^oris 
Godunof  Under  Tsar  Alexis,  Sheremetief's  father  refused 
to  give  his  son  his  blessing,  because  he  appeared  before  him 
with  his  chin  shaved,  and  the  Patriarch  Joachim  had  only 
stopped  the  movement,  by  thundering  excommunications 
against  it.  The  question  was  complicated  by  religious 
sentiment.  In  all  orthodox  Icons,  the  Eternal  Father  and 
His  Son  are  represented  with  beards,  and  in  long  robes;  and 
the  popular  belief,  supported  by  ecclesiastical  teaching,  held 
that  man,  being  made  in  God's  image,  committed  sacrilege 
when  he  did  anything  to  alter  that  sacred  resemblance.^  The 
civil  power  was  forced  to  take  these  elements  into  account, 
and  to  adopt  a  policy  of  compromise.  Alexis  published  a 
Ukase  supporting  the  Patriarchal  view  on  the  subject  of 
beards,  but,  in  168 1,  the  Tsar  Feodor  Alcxieievitch  ordered 
all  male  members  of  his  Court,  and  officials,  to  shorten  the 
skirts  of  their  clothing. 

These  controversies  may  provoke  a  smile,  but  my  French 
readers  will  recollect  that,  even  in  France,  a  passionate 
controvcrs)'  raged  over  the  beard  brought  into  fashion  by 
Francis  I.,  who  grew  his,  to  conceal  a  wound  on  his  face.- 

*  '&ovi%\2L\e{,  Historical  Sketches,  vol.  ii.  p.  216. 

"^  Yi^.nV.\\n,  Journal  of  the  Sie,^e  of  Paris  ill  1590,  pp.  108,  log. 


4i8  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Peter  settled  the  question  in  his  usual  radical  fashion. 
He  would  have  no  more  beards,  and  ever)-body  must  wear 
luiropean  costume,  cither  French  or  Hungarian.  His 
Ukase  on  the  subject  was  published  on  the  29th  of  August 
1699,  and  patterns  of  the  regulation  garments  were  exposed 
in  the  streets.  The  poorer  classes  were  granted  a  temporary 
delay,  so  that  they  might  wear  out  their  old  clothes,  but, 
after  1705,  every  soul  was  to  apjjear  in  the  new  uniform, 
under  pain  of  fines,  and  even  of  severer  penalties. 

The  reform,  thus  violently  imposed,  met  with  desperate 
opposition,  especially  among  the  lower  classes.  The  Boyards 
were  easily  managed, — they  had  worn  Polish  costume  ever 
since  Dimitri's  time,  and  the  elegance  of  the  French  style  of 
dress  distinctly  attracted  them  ;  in  March  1705,  Whit- 
worth  did  not  notice  a  single  well-born  person  wearing  the 
old-fashioned  dress.  But  the  poorer  classes  hung  back,  and 
not  without  good  reason.  In  such  a  climate,  short-skirted 
garments,  and  uncovered  stockings,  were  anything  but 
rational.  The  old-fashioned  Russian  costume  has  been 
said  to  be  only  fit  for  idlers,  but  the  Northern  climate,  with 
its  long  periods  of  enforced  hibernation,  had  taught  inen 
idleness.  Their  limbs  might  be  freer  when  they  cast  off 
their  long  pelisses,  but  they  ran  grievous  risk  of  being  frost- 
bitten ;  Peter  himself  died  of  a  chill.  The  poor  Monjik, 
forcibly  deprived  of  the  beard  which  had  kept  his  cheeks 
warm  in  40  degrees  of  cold,  begged  it  might  be  laid 
with  him  in  his  coffin,  so  that,  after  his  death,  he  might 
appear  decently  in  the  presence  of  St.  Nicholas.  '1  his 
popular  superstition  was,  like  many  others,  the  outcome  of  a 
thoroughly  well-founded  utilitarian  instinct. 

liut  all  this  was  nothing  to  Peter.  In  1704,  at  an  inspec- 
tion of  officials  of  all  classes,  held  as  he  was  passing  through 
Moscow,  he  caused  Ivan  Naoumof,  who  had  failed  to  u.se 
his  razors,  to  be  flogged.^  In  1706,  soldiers  were  posted  at 
all  the  church  doors  in  Astrakhan,  with  orders  to  fall  upon 
recalcitrant  worshippers,  and  pull  out  their  beards  by 
main  force.  The  Tsar  also  took  upon  himself  to  shorten 
the  women's  garments,  and  any  skirts  which  exceeded  the 
regulation  length  were  publicly  torn  up,  without  the 
slightest  regard  for  decency.-     Peter  had  a  special,  and  a 

*  Golikof,  vol.  ii.  p.  513. 

'  Whitworth's  Despatch,  Feb.  20,  1706;  Sl>ornik,  vol.  xxxix.  p.  249. 


MORALS— HABITS  AND  CUSTOMS  419 

kind  of  personal  hatred,  for  all  beards.  To  him  they  typi- 
fied all  the  ideas,  traditions  and  prejudices,  he  was  resolved 
to  overcome.  In  the  admonitions  addressed,  in  his  Manifesto 
of  1 7 18,  to  his  unfortunate  and  rebellious  son  Alexis,  the 
expression  ''great  beards'  is  frequently  repeated,  and  would 
appear  to  be  his  synonym  for  the  whole  reactionary  party, 
on  which  he  showers  the  most  violent  abuse.  '  This  is  easily 
understood,  in  the  case  of  such  people  as  these,  whose  morals 
are  corrupt,  qiionan  Dcus  venter  est ! ' — his  Latin  quotations 
were  somewhat  haphazard  !  Though,  as  time  went  on,  he 
did,  on  condition  of  a  heavy  tax,  tolerate  the  preservation  of 
these  hirsute  appendages,  it  was  only  because  his  financial 
embarrassments  pressed  so  heavily  upon  him.  The  Raskol- 
niks  paid  as  much  as  100  roubles,  yearly,  for  the  privilege, 
and  were  obliged  to  wear  medals,  given  them  on  receipt  of 
the  annual  sum,  engraved  with  the  following  inscription  : 
'  Bojvda  lishiiaia  tiagota '  ('  a  beard  is  a  useless  inconveni- 
ence '). 

Thus  we  see  Russia  shaved,  and  dressed  in  European 
garments.  The  Reformer's  next  step  was  to  put  a  pipe  into 
every  one's  mouth.  Even  before  his  travels  abroad  in  1697, 
he  had  authorised  the  free  sale  of  tobacco,  which  had  hitherto 
been  prohibited,  without  the  smallest  consideration  for  the 
offence  thus  given  to  the  national  prejudices.  As  we  have 
already  seen,  he  negotiated  with  Lord  Caermarthen,  during 
his  stay  in  England,  for  a  tobacco  monopoly.  A  smoker 
himself,  he  was  determined  every  one  else  should  smoke. 
All  this  strikes  us  as  being  rather  foolish,  and  even  as  denot- 
ing a  somewhat  unhealthy  imagination.  Yet  this,  so  far  as 
manners  and  customs  were  concerned,  was  the  commence- 
ment of  the  great  man's  civilising  work.  He  did  better  as 
he  went  on,  but  his  beginnings,  it  must  be  acknowledged, 
were  not  over  brilliant. 

On  the  20th  December  1699,  a  Ukase  appeared,  ordering 
a  reform  in  the  National  Calendar.  The  Russian  Calendar 
was  the  outcome  of  Byzantine  tradition  ;  the  year  began  on 
the  1st  of  September,  the  hypothetical  date  of  the  Creation, 
5508  years  B.C.  It  was  to  open,  in  future,  like  the 
European  year,  on  the  ist  of  January.  1  he  whole  world 
was  commanded  to  be  present  at  the  services  to  be 
celebrated  in  the  churches  on  that  day,  and,  thereafter,  to 
exchange  the  traditional  congratulations  and  good  wishes. 


420  PETER  THE  GREAT 

The  Reformer  would  fain  have  gone  a  step  further,  and 
adopted  the  Gregorian  Calendar,  but  this,  with  its  Roman 
and  Papal  characteristics,  was,  in  those  days,  strongly 
objected  to,  even  in  England,  where  it  was  not  adopted 
till  1752.  Moderate  as  it  was,  this  Reform  caused  a 
great  deal  of  ill-feeling.  '  Could  God  have  really  created 
the  world  in  winter?'  it  was  inquired.  Peter  cared  not  a 
jot,  and  he  was  wise  ;  for,  this  time,  he  was  on  the  right 
track.  He  pushed  steadily  forward.  In  the  year  1700,  he 
published  a  Ukase  ordering  the  first  apothecary's  shops, — 
eight  of  them, — to  be  opened  in  Moscow.  Another  Ukase, 
bearing  the  same  date,  forbade  the  carrying  of  knives, — 
which  too  frequently  played  a  terrible  part  in  the  daily 
street  quarrels  in  the  city, — on  pain  of  flogging  and  deporta- 
tion. In  the  following  year,  the  liberal  spirit  of  the  new 
n'oijue  was  proved  by  a  series  of  orders,  doing  away  with 
the  necessity  for  kneeling  when  the  Sovereign  passed,  and  of 
passing  his  palace  with  uncovered  head,  during  the  winter 
season.  Then,  in  1702,  came  the  great  domestic  Reform. 
The  doors  of  the  tereni  were  opened,  and  the  married  state 
was  surrounded  by  moral  guarantees.  Peter  stretched  a 
merciful  and  protecting  hand  over  Russian  family  life.  In 
1704,  he  did  battle  with  an  odious  feature  of  the  national 
habits, — the  habitual  doing  away  with  deformed  children, 
and  infants  born  out  of  wedlock.  He  favoured  the  creation 
of  an  Asylum  for  foundlings,  opened  by  Job,  the  Patriarch 
of  Novgorod,  in  1706,  and,  in  171 5,  he  took  more  decided 
personal  steps  in  this  most  painful  matter,  and  ordered  the 
foundation  of  similar  establishments,  in  all  the  great  towns 
in  his  Empire. 

This  part  of  his  work,  fragmentary  and  incomplete  as 
it  was,  was  excellent  in  its  way.  To  make  it  more 
harmonious,  the  Reformer  would  have  needed  far  greater 
leisure ;  but  his  mind  was  taken  up,  and  distracted,  by  his 
great  war.  He  called  the  Russian  women  forth  from  their 
tcreuis — a  good  thing  as  far  as  it  went — but  what  was  to  be- 
come of  them  now?  He  desired  the\'  should  go  into  society, 
like  their  sisters  in  France  and  German}- ; — but  no  Russian 
society  existed,  and  Peter  did  not  find  time  to  remedy 
this  defect  until  the  year  17 18.  Then,  during  a  pause  in 
the  war,  he  settled  the  question,  as  usual,  by  means  of  a 
Ukase.     This  fact,  I  imagine,  has  no  parallel  in  history.     He 


MORALS  — HABITS  AND  CUSTOMS  421 

ordered  periodical  receptions,  which  he  called  '  Assemblies,' 
to  be  held  in  a  certain  number  of  private  houses,  and  issued 
precise  regulations  as  to  the  arrant^ements,  the  order  in 
which  they  were  to  be  held,  and  all  other  details,  even  to  the 
smallest.  He  had  just  returned,  it  must  be  remembered, 
from  France,  and  was  evidently  guided  and  inspired  by  what 
he  had  seen  in  the  Paris  salons.  But  he  added  details  of 
his  own  invention.  These  Assemblies  were  to  last  from  four 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  till  ten  at  night.  The  hosts  were 
forbidden,  on  pain  of  fine,  to  go  forward  to  receive  their 
guests,  or  to  accompany  them  to  the  door  when  they 
departed.  All  they  were  to  do  was  to  prepare  a  more  or 
less  luxurious  reception,  lights,  refreshments,  and  games. 
The  invitations  were  not  of  a  personal  nature  ;  a  general  list 
of  admission  was  drawn  up,  and  published,  with  a  notifica- 
tion of  the  day  of  each  reception,  by  the  Chief  of  the  Police 
in  St.  Petersburg,  and  by  the  Commandant  of  the  city  of 
Moscow.  No  games  of  chance  were  allowed,  and,  by  a 
special  Ukase,  dated  28th  June  17 18,  card  and  dice  playing 
were  punished  by  the  knout.^  A  room  was  set  apart  for 
chess-players,  and  was  also  to  be  used  as  a  smoking-room, 
but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  and  following  Peter's  own  example, 
smoking  went  on  everywhere.  Leather  tobacco-bags  lay  on 
every  table,  and  Dutch  merchants  moved  about,  pipe  in 
mouth,  amongst  smart  gentlemen,  dressed  in  the  last 
Parisian  fashions.^  Dancing  held  a  foremost  place  in  the 
programme  of  these  entertainments,  and  as  his  subjects, 
male  and  female,  had  no  knowledge  of  that  accomplish- 
ment, Peter  himself  undertook  to  instruct  them.  Pergholz 
describes  him  as  a  first-rate  performer ;  he  executed  all 
kinds  of  steps  before  the  gentlemen,  who  were  expected" to 
use  their  legs  in  exactly  the  same  fashion  as  he  used  his. 
The  memories  of  the  drill  ground,  thus  conjured  up,  were 
not  likely  to  be  displeasing  to  the  Sovereign.  The  regula- 
tions provide  that  the  servants,  always  so  numerous  in 
Russian  households,  should  remain  in  the  ante-chambers, — 
access  to  the  reception  rooms  was  utterly  forbidden  them  : 
e.xcept  in  this  respect,  the  most  absolute  equality  reigned. 

^  Golikof,  vol.  iii.  p.  44. 

^  See  the  piclurestiue  description  of  one  of  these  gatherings  in  a  fragment  of  an 
historical  novel  by  Foushkin;  Collected  Works,  vol.  iv.  (1887  edition),  Peter  the 
Great's  Nep-ro. 


422  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Any  gentleman  miL;ht  invite  the  Empress  herself  to  dance 
with  him.^ 

As  in  the  case  of  most  of  Peter's  undcrtakinfijs,  the  early 
days  of  this  reform  bristled  with  difficulties,  more  especially 
at  Moscow,  where,  on  Peter's  arrival  to  celebrate  the  Peace 
of  Nystadt  in  1722,  a  special  Ukase  convoked  an  Assembly, 
at  which  all  ladies  *  above  ten  years  of  age,'  were  ordered  to 
appear  under  threat  of  '  terrible  punishment.'  Only  seventy 
put  in  an  appearance.  At  St.  Petersburg,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  institution  appears,  by  the  end  of  the  third  year  of  its 
existence,  to  have  taken  firm  root.  Let  us  now  consider  the 
benefit  accruing  from  it.  Peter  had  three  principal  aims : 
the  initiation  of  Russian  women  into  the  ordinary  intercourse 
between  the  sexes,  as  it  existed  in  Western  countries ;  the 
initiation  of  the  upper  classes  of  Russian  society,  into  the 
social  habits  general  in  those  countries  ;  and,  finally,  the 
fusion  of  the  native  classes,  and  their  mixture  with  the 
foreign  element  in  Russia.  This  last  object,  the  most 
important,  possibly,  from  his  point  of  view,  of  all  the  three, 
was  not  attained,  as  is  proved  by  the  great  mass  of  contem- 
porary testimony.  The  Russian  ladies  stubbornly  refused 
to  choose  their  partners  outside  the  ranks  of  their  own  fellow- 
countr}'men,  and  their  action,  in  this  respect,  was  based  on  a 
deliberate  and  common  understanding.  Peter  lacked  the 
qualities  necessary  for  the  attainment  of  the  two  other  points. 
He  should  have  had  more  of  the  man  of  the  world,  and  less 
of  the  sailor  and  carpenter,  in  his  own  person.  His  manners, 
like  his  dancing  steps,  were  aped  by  his  subjects,  and  his 
manners,  from  the  social  point  of  view,  were  neither  polite 
nor  pleasing.  In  the  intervals  between  the  dances,  the  part- 
ners, male  and  female,  being  devoid  of  conversation,  sat 
apart  in  dreary  silence.  The  Sovereign  could  think  of  no 
better  plan  to  break  the  ice,  than  the  introduction  of  a  dance 
during  the  figures  of  which  the  gentlemen  kissed  the  ladies 
on  their  lips?  And  these  poor  ladies  had  hard  work  to  appear 
at  all  like  their  fair  models  in  the  l^arisian  salons.  They 
wore  hoops,  indeed,  at  the  Tsar's  Assemblies,  but  they  still 
blackened  their  teeth !  ^ 

The  Court  in  St.  Petersburg,  like  the  Court  in  Paris,  gave 

'  Shoul)inski,  Historical  Selections,  p.  39;   Kaniovitch,  Selections,  p.  240. 

*  K.imovilrh,  p.  242. 

'  llyinrof,  The  Countess  Golorkin  and  her  Times,  p.  89, 


MORALS— HABITS  AND  CUSTOMS  423 

the  tone  to  society,  and  the  tone  of  the  circle  surrounding 
Peter  and  his  wife  had  nothing  in  common  with  that  of 
Versailles.  At  a  banquet  given  in  the  Imperial  Palace,  in 
honour  of  the  baptism  of  Catherine's  son,  the  centre  of  each  of 
the  two  tables,  devoted,  one  to  the  gentlemen,  and  another  to 
the  ladies,  was  adorned  with  a  huge  pasty,  and,  at  a  given 
moment,  a  male  dwarf  emerged  from  the  first,  and  a  female 
from  the  second,  both  of  them  in  piiris  natiiralibiis!'^  On  the 
14th  of  November  1724,  the  Empress's  fete-day,  their 
Majesties  dined  in  the  Senate-house  with  a  numerous  com- 
pany, including  the  Duchess  of  Mecklenburg  and  the 
Tsarina  Prascovia.  A  Senator  climbed  on  the  table,  and 
walked  from  one  end  to  the  other,  putting  his  feet  in  all  the 
dishes!^  An  important  part  was  played,  at  all  Court  festivities, 
by  six  Grenadiers  of  the  Guard,  who  carried  in  a  huge  tub 
of  strongly  spiced  corn  brandy,  which  Peter  distributed,  with 
a  wooden  spoon,  to  every  one  present,  ladies  included.  In 
one  of  Campredon's  despatches,  dated  8th  December  1721, 
I  find  the  following  words ;  '  The  last  banquet  given  in  hon- 
our of  the  Tsarina's  name-day,  was  very  splendid,  after  the 
manner  of  this  country.      The  ladies  all  drank  a  great  deal! 

But  indeed,  Peter,  as  we  know,  had  no  Court,  properly 
so  called.  One  of  the  first  acts  of  his  reign  had  been  to 
make  over  the  sums  formerly  devoted  to  the  Sovereign  and 
his  household,  for  the  general  benefit  of  the  State.  The 
various  departments  of  the  Tsar's  household  had  entirely 
disappeared,  and  with  them,  the  whole  army  of  palace 
officials  and  servants.  The  3000  saddle-horses,  and  the 
40,000  draught  horses,  which  had  filled  the  stables,  the 
300  cooks  and  kitchen  boys,  who  had  sent  up  3000  dishes 
daily  from  their  kitchen,  were  nothing  but  a  memory.^ 
Towards  the  end  of  the  reign,  some  new  Court  officials 
were  created  after  the  European  pattern,  but  they  only  did 
duty  a  few  times  each  year,  on  da}'s  of  great  ceremony. 
On  ordinary yi'/^  days,  when  the  Tsar  came  back  to  dinner, 
after  church,  he  was  accompanied  by  his  Ministers  and  by  a 
host  of  military  ofificers.  But  sixteen  places  only  were  laid 
at  his  table;  for  these  there  was  a  general  scuffle,  and  the 
sole   notice   Peter  took  of  the  many  who  were  left  out   in 

^  Pylaief,  The  Forgotten  Fast,  p.  308. 
'•^  Sicmievski,  The  'Fsa7-itia  Frascovia,  p.  169. 
*  Polevoi,  History  of  Feter  the  Great,  vol.  i.  p.  340,  etc. 
23 


424  PETER  THE  GREAT 

the  cold,  was  to  say,  'Go  home,  and  delight  your  wives  by 
dining  with  them,'  No  great  receptions  were  ever  held  in 
the  Tsar's  palace,  even  when  he  came  to  possess  one. 
Towards  the  end  of  his  reign,  the  Post-Office  was  used 
for  this  purpose,  instead  of  Menshikof's  palace,  and 
the  scene,  when  Peter's  guests  were  gathered  there,  was 
worthy  of  the  vilest  tavern,  l^ergholz  has  left  a  description 
of  a  banquet  given  in  May  1721,  in  honour  of  the  launching 
of  a  vessel,  liefore  the  middle  of  the  meal,  the  guests,  male 
and  female,  were  all  drunk,  the  wine  having  been  mixed  with 
brandy.  Old  Admiral  Apraxin  burst  into  a  flood  of  tears. 
Prince  Menshikof  fell  under  the  table,  and  his  wife  and 
sister  endeavoured  to  restore  him  to  consciousness.  Then 
the  company  began  to  quarrel,  blows  were  exclianged,  and 
a  general,  who  had  come  to  fisticuffs  with  a  lieutenant,  had 
to  be  arrested.^  It  should  be  added,  that  during  these 
orgies,  which  generally  lasted  six  hours,  and  often  longer, 
all  doors  were  rigorously  closed  ;  the  disgusting  and  de- 
liberately courted  consequences  may  be  better  conceived 
than  described.  They  are  an  evident  proof  of  Peter's  utter 
and  undisguised  scorn  of  dccenc\'  and  propriety. 

In  January  1723,  a  Court  mourning  was  ordered  for  the 
Regent  of  PVance,  but  at  the  next  Assembly,  most  of  the 
ladies  appeared  in  colours,  and  declared  they  possessed  no 
other  dresses.  Peter  had  them  all  turned  out,  but  very 
shortly  afterwards,  having  drunk  several  glasses  of  wine,  he 
himself  gave  the  signal  for  dancing  to  begin. ^ 

During  the  summer  season,  the  receptions  and  banquets 
were  held  in  the  Summer  Garden  which  was  turned  into 
something  like  a  noisy  Fair  ground.  The  smell  of  spiced 
brandy  spread  into  the  neighbouring  streets,  and  thousands 
of  spectators  were  entertained  by  the  coarse  laughter  of  the 
drinker^,  the  screams  of  the  women  whom  they  forced,  willy 
nilly.  to  swallow  their  ration  of  brandy,  and  the  burlesque 
songs  of  the  mock  cardinals.  Dancing  went  on  in  the  open 
air,  in  an  uncovered  gallery  overlooking  the  Neva.  In  the 
Imperial  summer  residences,  near  Moscow  and  St.  Peters- 
burg, the  coarse  habits  and  vulgar  tastes  of  the  Sovereign 
and  his  immediate  circle,  were  still  more  freely  displayed  ! 

1  liiischings-Magaziii,  vol.   xix.  pp.  94-96;  one  of  CampreUon's  dcsp;ilches, 
-fid  March  14,  1721,  coiilains  .similar  details. 
dat  Biischings-Miigazin,  vol.  xxi.  p.  191. 


MORALS— HABITS  AND  CUSTOMS  425 

Here  is  a  description  of  a  visit  to  Peterhof,  which  the 
Diplomatic  Corps  was  commanded  to  make  in  May,  171 5  : — 
'  On  the  9th,  the  Tsar  went  to  Kronslot,  whither  we  followed 
him  in  a  galley,  but  a  sudden  tempest  kept  us  there  at 
anchor,  for  two  days  and  three  nights,  in  an  open  boat, 
without  fire,  or  bed,  or  provisions.  When  we  reached 
Peterhof  at  last,  we  were  entertained  in  the  usual  manner, 
for  we  had  to  drink  so  much  Tokay  wine  at  dinner,  that, 
when  it  was  time  to  separate,  we  could  hardly  stand  on  our 
legs.  Notwithstanding  this,  the  Tsarina  presented  each  of 
us  with  a  glass  of  brandy,  containing  about  a  pint,  which  we 
were  obliged  to  swallow  This  completely  deprived  us  of 
our  reason,  and  we  gave  ourselves  up  to  slumber,  some  of  us 
in  the  gardens,  some  in  the  woods,  and  the  rest  on  the  ground, 
in  all  directions.  At  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  we  were 
roused,  and  led  to  the  castle,  where  the  Tsar  gave  each  of  us 
a  hatchet,  with  orders  to  follow  him.  He  conducted  us  to  a 
wood,  and  marked  out  an  alley  about  lOO  paces  long,  close 
by  the  sea,  the  trees  of  which  we  were  to  fell.  He  set  to 
work  before  us,  and  although  we  were  little  accustomed  to 
such  hard  labour,  we  contrived — there  were  seven  of  us 
besides  his  Majest}' — in  about  three  hours,  to  finish  our  task. 
The  fumes  of  wine  were  by  that  time  mostly  dissipated,  and 
no  accident  occurred,  except  that  a  certain  Minister,  who  was 
working  a  little  too  vigorousl}',  was  slightly  wounded  by  the 
fall  of  a  tree.  The  Tsar  having  thanked  us  for  our  trouble, 
entertained  us  in  the  evening,  in  the  ordinary  fashion,  and 
we  were  once  more  given  so  much  liquor  that  we  were  un- 
conscious by  the  time  we  were  sent  to  bed.  Before  we  had 
slept  an  hour  and  a  half,  we  were  woke  by  one  of  the  Tsar's 
favourites,  and  conducted,  in  spite  of  ourselves,  into  the 
presence  of  the  Prince  of  Circassia,  who  was  in  bed  with  his 
wife.  We  were  obliged  to  remain  beside  their  bed  till  four 
o'clock-  in  the  morning,  drinlcing  wine  and  brandy,  so  that 
we  hardly  knew  how  to  get  back  to  our  own  lodging.  About 
eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  we  were  called  to  breakfast  at 
the  castle,  but,  instead  of  the  tea  or  coffee  we  expected,  we 
were  given  large  glasses  of  brandy,  after  which  we  were  sent 
to  take  the  fresh  air  on  a  high  hill,  at  the  foot  of  which  we 
found  a  peasant  with  eight  miserable  nags  having  neither 
saddles  nor  bridles,  which  cannot  have  been  worth  more 
than  three  crowns  altogether.     Each  of  us  mounted  one, 


426  PETER  THE  GREAT 

and  we  then  passed,  in  comical  array,  before  their  Majesties, 
who  were  lookinc^  out  of  the  window.'  ^ 

It  sliould  furtlier  be  pointed  out  that  this  kind  of  savagery 
was  united  with  a  dissoluteness  and  barefaced  immorality  of 
which  Peter  himself  was  a  prominent  exponent.  When  the 
Duke  of  Holstein,  who  was  on  the  point  of  marrying  the 
Sovereign's  daughter,  publicly  appeared  in  St.  Petersburg, 
with  a  mistress  whose  husband  he  openly  protected,  his 
future  father-in-law  never  dreamt  of  finding  fault  with 
him. 

In  many  respects,  Peter  on'y  piled  corruption  on  corrup- 
tion, and  in  this  particular  matter  the  Slavophile  theory  is 
partly  justified.  AH  he  gained,  as  regards  external  forms, 
was  a  sort  of  disguise,  which  flattered  his  own  ta.ste  for 
travesty.  His  Russians  might  be  dressed  like  P'renchmen, 
but  few  of  them  had  lost  any  of  their  native  coarseness, 
and  they  had  grown  ridiculous  into  the  bargain.  In  1720,  a 
French  Capuchin  monk,  residing  at  Moscow,  thus  summed 
up  his  observations  : — '  We  are  beginning  to  have  some 
understanding  of  the  spirit  of  the  Muscovite  nation.  His 
Majesty,  the  Tsar,  is  said  to  have  worked  a  great  change 
in  the  course  of  the  last  twenty  years.  The  people  are  so 
subtle-minded,  it  is  true,  that  they  may  yet  be  humanised, 
but  their  obstinacy  is  so  extreme,  that  the  greater  number 
of  them  would  rather  remain  brutes,  than  become  men.  Be- 
sides this,  they  are  distrustful  of  all  foreigners,  rogues,  and 
thievish,  to  the  last  degree.  There  have,  it  is  true,  been 
terrible  executions,  but  even  that  has  not  sufficed  to  terrify 
them.  Tiiey  would  kill  a  man  for  a  few  copper  coins,  and 
consequently  it  is  not  safe  to  be  in  the  streets  at  all  late  at 
night.'  2 

The  change  was  very  superficial.  Any  sudden  paroxysm, 
physical  or  mental,  the  excitement  of  wine,  or  the  heat  of 
anger,  caused  the  mask  to  fall.  On  the  day  of  Peter's 
triumphal  entry  into  Moscow,  after  the  Persian  Campaign, 
in  December  1722,  Prince  Gregory  Dolgorouki,  a  senator 
and  diplomat,  and  the  Prince  Caesar,  Ivan  Romodanovski, 
flew  at  each  other,   before   numerous  witnesses,  and  fought 

'  Memoirs  of  Weber  (then  representative  of  the  Hanoverian  Court  in  Russia), 
V.  p.  1 48  (Paris). 

■^  Lclier  from  Father  Romain  de  Pourrentray  to  the  French  Envoy  in  Poland 
(French  Foreign  OfBce). 


MORALS— HABITS  AND  CUSTOMS  427 

with  their  fists  for  a  good  half  hour,  without  any  attempt 
being  made  to  separate  them.  The  foreigners  about  the 
Sovereign  were  surrounded,  in  his  presence,  with  every 
respect  and  flattery.  The  moment  his  back  was  turned,  the 
Russians  would  pull  off  their  wigs.  Even  the  Duke  of 
Holstein  had  some  difficulty  in  keeping  his  on  his  head.^ 
Those  ideas  of  honour,  probity,  and  duty,  of  which, — and 
herein  lies  his  greatest  historical  merit, — Peter  was  the  con- 
stant and  energetic  propagator,  failed  to  penetrate  the 
national  heart,  and  slid  over  its  refractory  soul  like  an  ill- 
fitting  garment.  Tatishtchef  himself,  when  he  was  recalled 
from  the  Ural,  where  his  peculations  had  been  denounced 
by  Demidof,  rested  his  defence  on  a  conception  of  morality 
anything  but  European  in  its  character.  '  Why  should  a 
judge  be  reprehended,  on  principle,  because  he  takes  money 
for  his  services  to  his  clients  ?  The  reward  is  honest,  so 
long  as  he  judges  honestly  ! '  ^  In  1750,  an  investigation  was 
opened  into  a  huge  system  of  fraud  and  embezzlement  in 
the  system  of  army  supply.  The  accused  persons  were 
Menshikof,  Admiral  Apraxin,  Korssakof,  Vice  -  Governor 
of  St.  Petersburg,  Kikin,  the  head  of  the  Admiralty, 
.Sieniavin,  the  Chief  Comniissioner  of  the  same  department, 
]5ruce,  the  Master  of  the  Ordnance,  and  Volkonski  and 
Lapouhin,  senators  ! 

Peter,  busy  toiler  as  he  was,  could  not  altogether  over- 
come the  inveterate  idleness,  and  physical  and  moral 
inertia  of  his  subjects.  Thousands  of  able-bodied  men 
begged  in  the  streets,  in  preference  to  working  with  their 
hands:  some  put  irons  on  their  legs, and  passed  as  prisoners, 
— sent  out,  according  to  the  habit  in  the  jails  of  that  period, 
to  beg  their  food  from  public  charity.  In  all  the  country 
districts,  reckless  idleness  went  hand  in  hand  with  frightful 
poverty.  '  Once  the  peasant  is  asleep,'  writes  Possoshkof, 
'  his  house  must  be  in  flames  before  he  will  leave  his  bed,  and 
he  will  never  take  the  trouble  to  disturb  himself,  to  put  out 
his  neighbour's  fire.'  Conflagrations  which  devoured  whole 
villages  frequently  occurred,  and  the  bands  of  robbers  who 
carried  off  what  the  fire  spared,  had  an  easy  task,  for  the 
inhabitants  never  dreamt  of  combining  to  repulse  the  male- 
factors.    These  would  make  their  way  into  a  hut,  force  the 

*  Bergholz,  Buschiti°s-Mas^azin,  vol.  xx    p.  5S9,  vol.  xxi.  p.  231. 
^  Solovief,  vol.  xviii.  p.  1S9. 


428  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Moujik  and  his  wife  to  tell  where  their  money  was  hidden, 
lay  hands  on  the  furniture,  pile  it  on  carts,  and  quietly 
depart.  The  neighbours  looked  on  and  never  lifted  a  fin<;cr. 
Many  young  men  went  into  monasteries,  to  escape  military 
service,  others  obtained  admission  to  the  schools  founded 
by  Peter,  and,  once  admitted,  idled  their  time  away. 

But  in  spite  of  all  that,  a  great  moral  revolution  was 
accomplished.  The  seed  Peter  cast  over  his  native  soil,  at 
random  somewhat,  irregularly,  and  sometimes  capriciously, 
was  to  germinate  and  bear  fruit.  And,  above  all  things,  he 
set  his  people  the  example  of  a  life  in  which  the  most 
deplorable  vices, — arising  from  his  original  hereditary  stain, 
— were  mingled  with  the  manliest  and  noblest  virtues. 
History  has  proved  to  which  side  the  balance  inclined.  A 
force,  the  elements  of  which  are  certainly  not  material,  only, 
has  been  developed  before  the  eyes  of  astonished  and 
startled  Europe,  in  a  population  of  ioo,ooo,ooo  souls.  This 
force  is  rooted  in  the  soul  of  the  hero  of  modern  Russia. 

To  him.  too,  his  country  owes  her  intellectual  progress, 
although  the  scholastic  establishments  of  the  great  reign  are 
considered,  and  not  unjustly,  to  have  failed. 

II 

The  Slavophile  party  has  ideas,  and  somewhat  presump- 
tuous ones,  of  its  own,  as  to  Russian  education,  previous  to 
the  days  of  Peter  the  Great.  According  to  these  the  great 
Reformer  rather  put  his  country  back,  by  substituting  for 
the  sy\stem  of  iiniversal  education  carried  on,  in  a  very 
satisfactory  manner,  in  primary  and  secondary  schools,  and 
in  the  Slavo-Greco-Latin  Academy  at  Moscow,  that  of 
education  by  professors,  already  discredited  in  Western 
Europe.  Let  us  first  consider  the  nature  of  these  schools, 
and  to  what  the  universality  of  their  teaching  really 
amounted. 

The  only  schools  in  existence  were  those  attached  to  a 
few  monasteries.  The  universal  education  consisted  in  the 
perusal  of  the  Sacred  Books,  and  some  very  bare  and  ele- 
mentary notions  of  geography  and  history.  After  Peter 
was  dead,  Feofan  Prokopovitch,  who  cannot  be  suspected  of 
undue  spite  against  the  ecclesiastical  system  of  education, 
called   attention   to   the   fact,   that,   when    no   other    system 


MORALS— HABITS  AND  CUSTOMS  429 

existed  in  the  country,  it  would  not  have  been  easy  to  find 
such  a  thing  as  a  compass  within  the  borders  of  Russia. 
The  elementary  text-books  of  the  period  are  drawn  up  in 
the  form  of  conversations,  which  give  curious  proof  of  the 
intellectual  level  of  the  times.  (Q.)  What  are  the  elevation 
of  the  sky,  the  extent  of  the  earth,  and  the  depth  of  the 
sea?  (A.)  The  elevation  of  the  sky  is  the  Father,  the  ex- 
tent of  the  earth  is  the  Son,  and  the  depth  of  the  sea  is  the 
Holy  Ghost.  (Q  )  To  whom  was  Christ's  first  writing  given } 
(A.)  To  the  Apostle  Caiaphas  {sic) ! 

No  real  period  of  education  existed  in  those  days  for 
Russian  men.  There  was  no  clearly  marked  point  of  transi- 
tion from  childhood  into  adult  years,  and  the  Russian  mind, 
even  in  maturity,  kept  something  of  the  freshness,  but  at  the 
same  time  some  of  the  gullibility  of  childhood.  It  was  filled 
with  a  sort  of  uncertain  dawning  light,  peopled  with  dim 
shapes,  and  confused  forms — a  mixture  of  pagan  superstition 
and  oddly  disfigured  Christian  legend.  Peroun,  the  God 
of  Thunder,  was  replaced  by  the  Prophet  Elijah,  in  his 
chariot,  riding  the  clouds.  Moral  and  physical  pheno- 
mena were  accepted  as  the  result  of  terrible  and  mys- 
terious forces,  in  the  face  of  which  man  stood  defenceless, 
and  miserably  impotent.^ 

This  chimerical  conception  of  the  realities  of  life,  so 
favourable  to  all  cowardly  instincts,  Peter  especially  desired 
to  overthrow,  by  means  of  education.  His  personal  views 
on  the  subject  were  far-reaching  ;  they  even  extended  to  the 
s)  stem  of  compulsory  and  gratuitous  teaching  advocated  by 
Possoshkof.  This  principle  was  confirmed  by  a  Ukase, 
dated  28th  February  1714.  But  its  application  was  con- 
fined to  a  single  class  of  of  pupils,  the  only  one  attainable, — 
the  children  of  the  Z^/c?/'i- (persons  employed  in  the  Adminis- 
trative Offices)  and  of  the  popes.  The  Senate  refused  to  go 
a  step  further,  holding  that  commerce  and  industry  must 
come  to  ruin,  if  the  supply  of  apprentices  was  entirely  cut 
off.  The  Reformer  yielded,  and  applied  his  system,  in  its 
restricted  form,  with  all  his  wonted  vigour  and  severity. 
The  son  of  a  Dink,  named  Peter  Ijorin,  refused  to  study  in 
a  mathematical  school  at  Olonets,  and  was  sent  back  to  St. 

'  Zal)ielin,  Kussian  Society  before  (he  Time  of  Peter  the  Great ;  Historical 
Essays  (Moscow,  1872),  p.  90,  etc.  ;  Solovief,  History  of  Russia,  vol.  xiii. 
p.  184,  clc. 


430  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Pctcrsbur^^  with  irons  on  his  legs.^  Schools  there  must  be 
everywhere,  and  schools  of  every  kind.  This  was  Peter's 
watchword. 

But  what  schools?  It  was  long,  unfortunately,  before 
Peter  came  to  any  decision  on  this  point.  In  the  earlier 
days  he  seemed  to  lean  tov/ards  that  pseudo-universal  t}  pe 
of  literary  tendency,  which  Polish  and  Little  Russian  influ- 
ence had  hitherto  supported.  P2ven  on  his  return  from  his 
first  foreiij^n  journey,  his  view  was  simplj-  '-)  extend  the  pro- 
gramme of  the  old  Muscovite  Academies,  but  his  meeting 
with  Gllick  inspired  him  with  a  different  idea,  though  some- 
what in  the  same  direction.  Catherine  Troubatshof's  former 
emploNXT  was  suddenly  nominated  Director  of  an  establish- 
ment, the  curriculum  of  which  was  to  include  geography, 
ethics,  politics,  Latin  rhetoric,  Cartesian  philosophy,  the 
Greek,  Hebrew,  Syrian,  Chaldean,  French  and  English 
languages,  riding  and  dancing !  ^  Giiick  soon  lost  the  few 
wits  he  possessed ; — and  then,  with  his  usual  swiftness,  the 
Reformer  turned  him  about.  He  knew  his  mind  at  last 
He  would  have  schools  for  special  professional  instruction,  like 
those  he  had  seen  in  Germany.  Holland,  and  England.  \h\t 
he  did  not  give  himself  time  to  prepare  a  general  plan,  and 
to  begin  at  the  beginning, — by  establishing  primary  and 
secondary  schools.  He  passed  at  a  bound,  to  the  higher 
subjects:  Engineering,  Navigation,  and  High  Mathematics. 
His  principal  idea  was  not  so  much  to  diffuse  knowledge,  as 
to  prepare  the  officers  necessary  for  his  army  and  navy,  and 
this  utilitarian  view  long  continued  to  sway  all  his  efforts. 
A  Naval  Academy  was  established  at  St.  Petersburg,  while 
Moscow  was  given  a  School  of  Military  Surgery,  in 
which  richly  endowed  Professorships  were  held  by  German 
and  Juiglish  teachers.  Pupils  were  the  only  thing  lacking. 
The  sons  of  the  Diaks  and  popes,  the  only  learners  at  the 
Tsar's  disposal,  could  not  well  attempt  to  study  Hi.^h 
Mathematics,  until  they  knew  how  to  read  and  write  !  Peter's 
hasty  stride  brought  him  to  the  top  of  the  ladder,  but  he  had 
never  given  a  thought  to  the  lower  rungs.  A  Ukase  was 
indeed  })ublished,  in  17 14.  containing  a  plan  for  establishing 
Provincial  Schools,  both  Primary  and  Secondar}',  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Bishoprics  and  Monasteries.     But  in    17 19,  the 

*  Popof,  Tatishtchef  and  his  Times,  p.  38. 

'  Piekarski,  Literature  and  Science  in  Ktissia,  vol.  i.  p.  128. 


MORALS— HABITS  AND  CUSTOMS  431 

Director  of  these  establishments,  Gregory  Skorniakof- 
Pissaref,  informed  the  Sovereign  that  it  had  only  been  found 
possible  to  open  one  school,  containing  six-and-tvventy 
pupils,  at  Jaroslav.  Forty-seven  schoolmasters  were  sent 
from  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow  into  the  Provinces  during 
the  year  1723  ;  eighteen  found  nothing  to  do,  and  returned  to 
the  two  cities.  During  that  same  year  the  question  of  fusing 
these  projected  Provincial  schools  with  the  Church  schools, 
which  a  recently  published  edict  had  called  into  being,  was 
raised.  The  Synod  informed  the  Tsar  that  only  one  such 
Church  school,  that  of  Novgorod,  was  in  existence.^  Up  to 
1713.  there  were  only  three-and-twenty  pupils  in  the 
Engineering  School,  Peter,  in  that  year,  forcibly  caused 
seventy -seven  youths,  taken  from  the  fann'lies  of  the  Palace 
servants,  to  enter  it,  and  their  learned  teachers  were  driven 
to  begin  by  teaching  them  their  alphabet ! 

The  Reformer  was  not  unaware  of  the  poor  results  ob- 
tained, and  endeavoured  to  supply  the  want  by  sending  a 
great  many  young  men  into  educational  establishments 
abroad.  But  here  again  difficulties  arose.  PLngland  pro- 
tested against  this  foreign  invasion.  The  necessary  funds, 
too,  were  not  forthcoming.  Two  young  men  sent  to  Paris 
in  17 16  and  171 7, — one  of  them  the  negro,  Abraham, — com- 
plained that  they  were  starved  ;  they  had  not  a  crown  a  day 
between  them.  Idleness  and  misconduct,  too,  played  their 
part.  In  17 17,  Prince  Rcpnin  besought  the  Sovereign  to 
allow  his  two  sons  to  return  from  Germany,  where,  instead 
of  learning  to  be  good  soldiers,  they  were  doing  nothing  but 
running  into  debt.  The  authorities  at  Toulon  were  obliged, 
at  the  same  period,  to  take  strong  measures  with  the  young 
Russian  gentlemen  who  had  been  allowed  to  enlist  in  the 
Gardes  Marine.  Zotof,  the  Tsar's  Agent,  reported  that  they 
quarrelled  amongst  themselves,  swore  at  each  other  '  as  no  one 
here,  even  of  the  lowest  condition,  would  do,'  and  even  killed 
each  other,  'otherwise  than  in  open  duel.'  It  was  found 
necessary  to  deprive  them  of  their  swords.^ 

Russia,  take  it  all  in  all,  was  still  dependent  on  Europe 
for  her  military,  scientific,  artistic  and  industrial  staff,  and 
though,  by  some  means  or  other,  the  barracks  were  filled,  all 
other  services  betrayed  a  distressing  void.  Yet  Peter  did 
not  lose  courage.  Me  pushed  steadily  forward.  After  his 
^  Piekarski,  vol.  i.  p.  125.  -  Ibid.,  p.  i6^ 


432  PETER  THE  GREAT 

stay  in  Paris,  he  was  haunted  b)'  the  desire  of  possessing  an 
'  Academic  des  Sciences'  at  St.  retersbur<^. 

He  had  endless  plans  drawn  up;  he  collected  information 
from  ever)'  quarter  ;  he  superadded  ideas  of  his  own,  and 
ended  by  attemptini;  something  at  once  ambitious  and  ill- 
defined.  His  iiope  had  been  to  fill  up,  by  this  means,  all  the 
disappointing  gaps  of  the  scholastic  organisation  he  had  en- 
deavoured to  create,  and  of  the  intellectual  life  he  had  hoped 
to  arouse.  He  was  well  aware,  up  to  a  certain  point  at  least, 
of  the  inadequacy  of  the  materials  at  his  command,  and 
therefore,  contrary  to  his  usual  habit,  he  moved  slowly,  as 
though  groping  his  way,  until  several  years  had  gone  by. 
It  was  not  till  1724,  just  twelve  months  before  his  death,  that 
he  settled  the  question,  in  his  characteristic  fashion,  with  one 
stroke  of  his  pen.  Below  Pick's  report  on  the  necessity  of 
finding  capable  men  for  the  various  Russian  staffs,  he  wrote 
the  words,  '  Sdtclat  akadcniioii '  (Found  an  academy). 

In  small  provincial  towns,  and  in  some  of  the  remoter 
quarters  of  Paris,  general  establishments  are  to  be  seen — 
half  shops,  half  '  bureaux  de  tabac' — where  stamps,  groceries, 
cigars,  household  utensils,  newspapers,  and  even  books,  are 
retailed.  They  are  the  typical  remnant  of  the  ancient 
bazaars,  a  form  to  which  the  huge  general  emporiums  of 
our  period  seem,  by  a  process  not  unfrcquent  in  the  history 
of  civih'sation,  to  be  returning.  The  difference  between  the 
two  resides  in  the  confusion  apparent  in  the  first,  and  the 
methodical  arrangement  so  remarkable  in  the  second.  The 
Academy,  as  created  by  Peter  the  Great's  ukase,  was  like  a 
primitive  bazaar.  The  three  classical  forms — the  German 
Gymnasium,  the  Teutonic  University,  and  the  French  Aca- 
demy, were  mingled  and  confounded  in  whimsical  juxtaj^o- 
sition.  It  was  to  be  a  school,  but,  at  the  same  time,  it  was 
to  be  a  learned  society,  and  an  artistic  coterie.  This  strange 
idea  is  easily  explained.  It  corresponds  with  an  inferior 
degree  of  specific  development,  just  as  in  the  case  of  those 
general  shops,  where  packets  of  candles  lie  on  the  same 
counter  with  yellow-backed  novels.  The  Moscow  Acatlemy, 
founded  before  the  Reformer's  accession,  was  half  ecclesiastic 
and  half  secular. 

This  work  has  been  severely  and  not  unjustly  criticised.^ 

^  The  unfavourable  verdict  of  PIcyer  and  Vockerodt.conlemporary diplomatists, 
as  published  by  Herrmann,  roused  a  somewhat  lively  discussion  (in  which  the 


MORALS— HABITS  AND  CUSTOMS  433 

As  a  teaching  centre,  it  never  accomplished  anything  serious, 
for  it  had  no  pupils  capable  of  following  the  lectures  of  such 
men  as  Hermann,  Delisle,  and  Bernoulli,  on  the  highest 
problems  of  speculative  science,  abstruse  mathematical  ques- 
tions, and  Greek  and  Latin  antiquities.  But  as  a  learned 
society,  it  certainly  did  good  service,  both  to  scientific 
interests  in  general,  and  to  those  of  Russia  in  particular. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  practical  value  of  De- 
lisle's  work  in  Russian  cartography,  nor  as  to  Bayer's  studies 
of  Greek  and  Roman  antiquities.  It  may  be  disputed  whether 
the  24,912  roubles,  assigned  for  the  support  of  the  institution, 
and  charged  on  the  revenues  of  Narva,  Derpt,  and  Pernau, 
might  not  have  been  better  emplo}'ed,  in  a  country  where 
intellectual  luxury  may  fairly  have  appeared  ill-placed,  and 
at  a  period  when,  before  providing  highly  scientific  books,  it 
was  not  easy  to  find  readers  able  to  digest  far  more  elemen- 
tary works. 

But  the  real  teaching  of  the  great  reign,  and  the  only  one 
which  did  not  fall  short  of  the  Tsar's  hope  and  endeavour, 
is  that  which  Peter  himself  bestowed  for  thirty  years — the 
teaching  of  his  great  example,  to  which  I  have  already 
referred  :  his  universal  curiosity,  his  feverish  love  of  learningj 
contagious  in  their  essence,  and  which,  to  a  certain  extent, 
he  succeeded  in  communicating  to  his  subjects.  And  apart 
from  this,  no  one  can  reproach  him  with  having  neglected 
the  elements  and  rudiments  of  that  intellectual  initiation 
which  he  so  earnestly  desired  to  bestow. 

Ill 

Peter  did  more,  to  begin  with,  than  teach  liis  subjects  to 
read — he  gave  them  a  new  language,  which,  like  the  rest, 
was  almost  wholly  his  creation.  When  he  was  at  Amster- 
dam in  1700,  he  ordered  a  Dutchman,  John  Tessing,  assisted 
by  a  Pole,  named   Kopiewski,   or  Kopicwicz,^  to  set   up   a 

eminent  French  Slavist,  IVI.  Leger,  shared),  during  1S74.  Ilerr  Briickner 
defemicd  Peter  and  his  Academicians  in  the  fotii-nal  dti  Alutistire  de  C Instruc- 
tion Fublique  (Jan.  1874),  and  in  the  Neviie  A'usse.  An  article  pubn^hcd  liy 
M.  Leger  in  the  Revue  critique  (1874,  No.  14),  attracted  Ilerr  Herrmann's 
altenlion  to  this  argument,  to  whicli  he  rephed  in  a  %'ery  aggressive  panqililet 
(/".  G.  Vockerodt  und  dcr  /'ro feasor  fiir  Russische  Gcsckic/tte  zii  Dorpnt,  \. 
lirtickner,  1874),  which  elici  ed  a  somewhat  sharp  rejoinder  in  llie  Rcviic  Russe, 
1S75,  vol.  vi.  p.  113. 

'  He  himself  spelt  his  name  in  two  different  fashions. 


434  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Russian  printinf:;-prcss  in  that  town.  A  batch  of  worlds  on 
the  most  varied  subjects,  history,  i^cot;ra})liy,  hin.Ljuages, 
arithmetic,  the  art  of  war,  and  the  art  of  navigation,  was 
here  pubhshed  :  most  of  these  were  translations,  or  adapta- 
tions, without  any  scientific  value,  but  useful  for  poi)ular- 
ising  purposes.  In  1 707,  this  printing-hive  sent  off  a  swarm, 
and  a  compositor,  a  printer,  and  a  typefounder  arrived  at 
Moscow,  with  a  Russian  al[)habet  of  a  novel  kind, — the 
^C^rajddtiski  sJirift,  or  'civil  alpliabet,'  thus  named  to  distin- 
guish it  from  the  ancient  Slavo-Servian  alphabet,  to  which 
the  Church  still  adhered.  This  was  at  once  adopted  by  Peter 
for  two  new  publications  ;  a  Treaty  on  Geometry,  and  a 
Manual  of  Complimentary  Phrases,  translated  irom  the 
German.  These  were  followed  by  translations  of  military 
wi^rks,  the  proofs  of  which  the  Tsar  himself  corrected.  But 
this  new  alphabet  did  not  satisfx'  the  eager  creative  spirit  of 
the  Reformer.  The  faithful  subjects  of  Queen  Victoria  are 
fond  of  calling  their  language  'the  Queen's  English';  'the 
Tsar's  Russian,'  is,  historically  speaking,  a  far  more  vera- 
cious phrase.  In  1721,  Peter  desired  the  Holy  Synod,  then 
recently  called  into  existence,  to  undertake  the  translation 
of  part  of  Puffendorfs  works.  A  contention  arose  amongst 
the  members  of  the  Assembly.  Should  the  contemplated 
work  appear  in  the  ancient  Slavonic  language  of  the  Church, 
or  in  the  current  form,  which,  in  course  of  time,  had  under- 
gone great  alteration  ?  The  Sovereign  settled  the  question 
in  most  unexpected  fashion,  decreeing  the  employment  of  a 
s[)ecial  language,  which,  up  to  this  moment,  had  only  been 
used  in  the  Tsar's  Diplomatic  Chancery,  and  which  clearly 
betrayed  its  cosmopolitan  origin,  crammed  as  it  was  with 
foreign  words,  or  existing  ones  used  in  a  novel  sense, — a 
lisping  of  barbarians  striving  to  spell  out  European  civilisa- 
tion. This  was,  in  future,  to  be  the  official  tongue.  At  the 
present  moment,  it  is  written  and  spoken  by  one  hundred 
millions  of  men. 

Tiie  very  idea  of  having  Puffendorf  translated  by  a  body 
of  ecclesiastics,  seems  droll  enough,  but  Peter,  as  we  know, 
was  apt  to  use  any  means  he  found  to  his  hand.  He  wanted 
books,  and  after  having  desired  the  manager  of  his  printing 
press,  Polycarpof,  to  supply  him  with  a  history  of  Russia, 
and  found  his  w^ork  far  from  satisfactory,  he  confided  the 
duty  to  the  officials   in   his   Diplomatic  Chancery,  the  Ian- 


MORALS— HABITS  AND  CUSTOMS  435 

guage  of  which  he  had  lately  adopted.  When  he  wanted  a 
Museum,  he  appealed  to  the  zeal  of  all  his  subjects,  and 
accepted,  without  inquiry,  any  curiosities  they  offered  him, — 
even  two-headed  calves  and  deformed  children, — endeavour- 
ing, all  the  while,  to  convince  the  givers  that  these  'monsters' 
did  not  come  from  the  Devil,  as  they  were  inclined  to  think. 
There  is  something  touching  after  all,  in  his  perpetual 
struggle,  ill-calculated  often,  clumsy,  missing  its  object,  but 
ceaseless  and  unwearying,  always  straining  towards  that 
point,  bathed  in  the  light  of  progress,  on  which  his  eyes  were 
fixed.  And  in  the  end  he  generally  won.  Two  officers  of 
his  fleet,  Ivan  levreinof  and  Feodor  Loujin  started,  in  17 19, 
on  an  exploring  voyage  to  the  coast  of  Kamschatka,  with 
orders  to  seek  for  the  solution  of  a  problem  suggested  by 
Leibnitz, — Were  Asia  and  America  united  on  that  side,  or 
did  the  sea  lie  between  them  .''  The  only  result  of  this  first 
expedition  was  a  map  of  the  Kurile  Islands,  but  Peter 
returned  to  the  charge,  and  in  1725,  the  Straits  which  still 
bear  the  name  of  the  bold  explorer,  were  discovered  by 
Behring. 

In  the  Records  of  the  Paris  Academy,  we  find  mention 
made,  by  the  elder  Delisle,  of  a  map  of  the  Caspian  Sea,  and 
the  surrounding  Provinces,  which  Peter  had  shown  him  in 
1717,  and  which,  though  not  absolutely  correct,  did  much  to 
rectify  the  contemporary  Western  idea  of  those  countries. 
In  1 72 1,  thirty  cartographers  were  already  working  inde- 
pendently in  different  Provinces  in  Russia.  The  instructions 
given  them  by  Peter  were  characteristically  scanty.  '  The 
latitude  of  each  town  will  be  taken  by  the  sun-dial,  and  you 
will  then  work  in  a  straight  line  to  every  point  of  the  com- 
pass, up  to  the  frontier  of  each  district.'  Yet  some  work  was 
done.  S^  ecial  explorers  were  also  sent  out,  Lieutenant 
Gerber,  to  the  Northern  Caspian,  Dr.  Messerschmidt,  and 
Tabbert,  a  Swedish  prisoner,  better  known  under  the  name 
of  Strahlenbcrg,  to  Siberia.  Florio  Beneveni,  an  Italian, 
travelled  into  Persia  and  Bokhara,  and  to  Khiva,  while 
Lieutenant  Buchholz  and  Major  Liharef  followed  the  course 
of  the  Irtich.  The  Secretary  of  the  Senate,  Ivan  Kirillof, 
was  ordered  to  use  the  information  thus  collected,  for  the 
compilation  of  a  general  Atlas,  on  which  he  laboured  till 
1734,  and  which  is  a  work  of  considerable  value.^ 

^  Struwe,  Russische  Revue,  vol.  viii.,  1876. 


436  PETER  THE  GREAT 

In  1720,  the  innumerable  monasteries  in  the  Empire  were 
comniaiiclcd  to  give  up  their  stores  of  ancient  charters, 
manuscripts,  and  books.^  This  was  the  beginning  of  the 
Russian  Archives.  The  foundations  of  a  Library,  the  direct 
result  of  Peter's  Conquest,  were  laid  with  books,  carried  off 
from  Mittau,  in  the  course  of  the  Northern  War,  and  stored, 
in  the  first  instance,  in  the  Summer  Palace  at  St.  Petersburg. 
But  a  Museum  of  Art  was  still  lacking,  and  Peter  gave  com- 
missions, in  17 1 7,  to  several  Florentine  artists,  amongst  others 
to  Bonacci,  from  whom  he  ordered  two  statues,  representing 
Adam  and  Eve.  In  17 13,  he  began  to  make  purchases  at 
Rome,  and  his  Agent,  Kologrivof,  wrote  him  that  he  had 
acquired  a  Venus  'more  beautiful  than  that  at  Florence,  and 
in  better  preservation.'  For  this  he  paid  only  196  ducats. 
A  School  of  Fine  Arts  was  added  to  the  Museum,  and 
attached,  oddly  enough,  to  the  offices  of  the  Arsenal.  The 
entrance  to  all  Museums  was  free.  In  vain  did  Peter's 
counsellors  open  a  question  which  frequently  attracts  atten- 
tion in  the  present  day,  and  endeavour  to  enrich  the  National 
collections  by  means  of  a  moderate  entrance  fee.  He  took 
a  step  in  the  opposite  direction,  and  gave  orders  for  the 
gratuitous  distribution  of  refreshments  to  the  visitors.  This 
habit  was  continued  till  the  reign  of  Anna  Ivanovna,  and  cost 
about  400  roubles  a  year.^  Sixty  groups  of  figures,  which 
adorned  the  fountains  in  the  gardens  of  the  Summer  Palace, 
taught  the  St.  Petersburg  public  the  story  of  /Esop's  P'ables. 
The  text  of  each  fable  was  affixed  to  the  group  representing 
it.  These  gilded  leaden  figures  possessed  no  beauty,  but 
the  intention  with  which  they  were  placed  in  the  gardens  was 
excellent. 

Peter  did  not  overlook  the  value  of  the  Theatre,  as  a 
means  of  intellectual  instruction.  Very  little  is  known  of 
theatrical  history  in  Russia  before  the  great  reign.  Periodi- 
cal representations,  on  the  model  of  those  given  in  the  Jesuit 
F2ducational  Establishments,  did  certainly  take  place  in  the 
Monasteries  at  Kief  and  Moscow,  and  at  the  Hospital  in  the 
ancient  Capital.  The  subjects  of  these  plays  were  always 
religious,  and  the  actors  were  seminarists  and  students. 
The  scenery  was  of  the  roughest,  and  the  general  style 
extremely  coarse.  Jokes  upon  the  subject  were  current  in 
the  German  quarter.     There  was  a  story,  that,  in   a   piece 

'  Collected  Law i,  3693.  ^  Golikuf,  vol.  x.  p.  42. 


MORALS— HABITS  AND  CUSTOMS  437 

representing  tlie  Annunciation,  the  Blessed  Virgin  answered 
the  Angel,  'Dost  thou  take  me  for  a  .  .  .  ?'^  In  1672,  the 
year  of  Peter's  birth,  actors  first  appeared  at  Court.  Alexis' 
first  wife,  the  Miloslavska,  ruled  by  Byzantine  asceticism  and 
the  laws  of  the  Domostroi",  had  opposed  all  such  representa- 
tions, but  his  second  consort,  who  was  cheerful  in  tempera- 
ment, and  altogether  more  open-minded,  welcomed  them  to 
the  Kreml.  The  company  was  a  German  one,  but  it  was 
expected  to  make  Russian  actors  out  of  the  pupils  belonging 
to  the  State  offices  i^poddiatcJiyif)  who  were  confided  to  it  as 
apprentices.  These  actors  performed,  before  Racine's  time, 
a  version  of  the  story  of  Esther  and  Ahasuerus,  which  was 
considered  to  recall  that  of  Nathalia  and  Alexis.  The  Tsar's 
death,  and  the  troubled  years  that  ensued,  put  a  stop  to 
these  entertainments.  There  is,  indeed,  a  story  that  Sophia 
caused  plays  of  her  own,  amongst  others  a  translation  of 
Moliere's  ^ Medecin  malgre  lui',  to  be  performed  within  the 
tereui  about  1680.  She  is  even  said  to  have  taken  a  part 
herself.  But  the  Regent's  well-known  character,  and  the 
disturbed  history  of  her  Regency,  render  this  a  very  unlikely 
supposition.  She  may  have  been  confused  with  Peter's 
elder  sister,  the  Tsarevna  Nathalia,  then  about  seventeen 
years  of  age,  who  was  later  to  give  proof  of  real  theatrical 
talent. 

All  these  performances  were  private  in  their  character, 
and  this  quality  Peter  caused  to  disappear.  Pie  installed  the 
theatre  on  the  Red  Square,  and  summoned  the  general  public 
to  the  performances.  He  set  his  heart  on  having  a  Russian 
company,  playing  Russian  pieces,  and  his  desire  was  accom- 
plished. In  1714,  the  Tsarevna  Nathalia  lodged  a  company 
of  native  actors,  who  played  both  tragedy  and  comedy,  in  a 
huge  house  at  St.  Petersburg,  which  had  been  lately  built, 
and  hastily  abandoned.  She  herself  superintended  the  staging 
and  machinery,  sketched  scenery,  and  wrote  plays  full  of 
political  allusions,  of  a  moral  tendency.  The  orchestra  was 
composed  of  Russian  musicians  ; — the  conductor's  baton,  so 
Weber  tells  us,  was  not  unfrequently  replaced  by  a  cudgel. 
Peter  was  a  great  lover  of  music,  especially  of  religious 
music  ;  he  hatl  a  fair  choir  of  church  choristers,  in  whose 
performances  he  was  fond  of  joining,  and  he  also  had  horn 

^  Ilaigold,  Beilagoi  zuin  iieuvcrainlerten  Kusslattd  (Leipzig,  1770),  vol.  i. 
P-  399- 


438  PETER  TIIK  GREAT 

players,  and  performers  on  the  Polish  bag-pipes.  After  the 
year  1720,  the  Duke  of  Ilolstein's  orchestra  frequently  played 
at  the  Russian  Court,  and  there  introduced  tlie  sonatas,  solos, 
trios  and  concertos  of  such  famous  German  and  Italian 
masters  as  Telemann,  Kayser,  Haynischen,  Schultz,  Fuchs, 
Corelli,  Tartini,  and  Porpora. 

Finally,  the  usefulness  and  the  power  of  the  periodical 
press  did  not  escape  the  great  man's  watchful  eye.  In 
the  year  1702,  Baron  von  Huissen  was  charged  with 
the  duty  of  keeping  up  good  relations  between  the 
Tsar  and  European  opinion,  and  was  granted  financial 
means  for  the  purpose.  He  translated,  published  and 
disseminated  the  Sovereign's  decisions  as  to  the  military 
organisation  of  his  Empire ;  he  encouraged  learned 
men,  in  every  country,  to  dedicate  their  works  to  the 
Tsar,  and  even  to  write  books  in  his  honour ;  he  inun- 
dated Holland  and  Germany  with  pamphlets,  according  to 
which  Charles  XII.  had  been  beaten,  and  altogether  worsted, 
long  before  the  Battle  of  Poltava.  A  Leipsic  newspaper, 
'  EiiropcniscJie  Fatna'  was  in  his  pay,  and  conscientiously 
flattered  and  toadied  the  Tsar,  in  return  for  his  money. 
In  1703,  the  first  Russian  Gazette  appeared  at  Moscow — 
yet  another  'window'  opened  to  admit  Western  air  and 
light.  Until  that  time,  the  Tsar  had  been  the  only, 
or  almost  the  only,  person  in  Russia  who  knew  what 
was  happening  abroad.  The  extracts  from  the  foreign 
Gazettes  {Koin-anty),  made  in  the  Office  of  Foreign 
Affairs,  were  only  intended  for  the  Sovereign  and  his  im- 
mediate circle.  All  the  domestic  news  of  the  country  was 
transmitted  from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  so  disfigured  in  the 
process,  that  error  sprang  up,  in  every  direction,  amongst  the 
simple  -  minded  populace.  This  first  number  of  the  new 
Gazette  gives  information  as  to  the  number  of  cannon  re- 
cently cast  at  Moscow,  and  the  number  of  pupils  in  the 
newly-founded  schools. 

Even  in  the  present  day,  the  Russian  press  is  very 
far  from  having  reached  tlie  level  of  its  Western  fore- 
runners, and  if,  generally  speaking,  Peter's  work  in  this 
matter  were  to  be  judged  by  its  apparent  and  immediate 
results,  the  benefit  would  appear  but  small.  The  only  literary 
efforts  we  can  find  are  a  few  very  faulty  translations  ;  a 
memorandum   by  Shafirof,  the   Secretary  of  State,  on   the 


MORALS— HABITS  AND  CUSTOMS  439 

motives  of  the  Tsar's  war  against  Sweden,  written  in  Russian, 
but  full  of  French  words  ;  an  historical  compihition  by  Peter 
Krekshin  ;  another  by  Prince  Hilkof,  as  badly  expressed 
as  Shafirofs  production  ;  and  one  more,  far  the  best,  by 
Basil  Tatislitchef  The  only  poet  of  the  period  is  Prince 
Antiochus  Kantemir,  the  son  of  that  Hospodar  of  Moldavia 
whose  friendship  so  nearly  proved  fatal  to  Peter ;  but  his 
eight  satires,  in  syllabic  verse,  did  not  appear  till  after  the 
great  Tsar's  death.  As  far  as  science  is  concerned,  we  have 
a  second-rate  arithmetical  treatise  and  a  few  maps  ;  in  art, 
some  statues  brought  from  Italy,  and  three  painters  who 
studied  there,  Nikitin,  Merkoulief,  and  Matvieief.  The 
portrait  of  Peter  by  the  last  -  mentioned  artist  is  not  a 
masterpiece. 

But  this  is  not  the  manner  in  which  to  assess  the  distance 
covered  by  the  great  leader,  and  by  the  subjects  who  followed 
him.  These  dimensions  must  be  sought  in  the  general 
change  of  mind  and  feeling  brought  about  by  the  reforms, 
and  the  consequent  modification  of  the  national  thought  and 
sentiment.  I  will  refer,  if  written  evidence  is  absolutely  re- 
quired, to  two  documents,  set,  like  frontier  posts,  at  the  begin- 
ning and  end  of  the  reign.  Possoshkof's  w'ill,  at  its  com- 
mencement, and  Tatishtchefs,  at  its  close,  are  both  of  them 
addressed,  not  so  much  to  the  writers'  direct  heirs,  as  to  their 
intellectual  posterity.  Possoshkof  was  an  enthusiastic  ad- 
mirer of  the  Reformer  and  of  his  work  ;  he  followed  him 
faithfully,  so  far  as  his  ideas  and  principles  of  order  and 
administrative  government  were  concerned,  but,  in  the 
matter  of  scientific  beliefs,  he  was  bound  by  the  monastic 
spirit  of  the  fifteenth  century.  When  Tatishtchef  appeared, 
those  bonds  were  broken.  He  was  the  embodiment  of 
Modern  Russia,  hearkening  readily  to  the  wind  that  blew 
from  afar  ;  the  open  current  had  no  terror  for  him  ;  he  was 
over  eager,  rather,  to  cast  himself  into  it.  All  progress 
charmed  him  ;  no  step  was  too  bold  for  him  ;  there  is 
something  almost  American  in  his  inclination  to  eccentric 
methods.     All  this  was  Peter's  doing. 

It  was  no  light  undertaking  to  turn  the  national  mind 
from  purely  religious  subjects,  and  interest  it  in  profane  and 
human  things.  It  is  a  curious  fact,  though  easily  explained 
b)'  the  circumstances,  that  the  man  who  did  most  to  help 
Peter  in  this  matter,  Feofan  Prokopovitch,  was  himself  a 
29 


440  PETER  THE  GREAT 

priest.  He  never  spoke,  save  within  churches — he  never 
wrote,  but  on  matters  of  theology  or  ecclesiastical  discipline; 
but  iiis  sermons  were  political  pamphlets,  and  his  religious 
rules  were  satires.  Peter  laicised  even  the  priesthood — for 
the  movement  he  created  was  driven,  in  its  search  for  men 
worth}-  to  take  part  in  it,  to  take  hold  of  this  priest  within 
the  walls  of  his  sacristy,  and  sweep  him  into  the  outer  world. 
Out  of  this  sudden  whirlwind  of  new  sensations  and  ideas, 
which  snatched  men  from  their  habits  and  their  prejudices, 
from  the  sanctuaries  in  which  they  had  spent  centuries  of 
idleness,  and  threw  them  headlong  into  the  budding  tumult 
of  an  intellectual  and  moral  world  just  breaking  into  life, 
Modern  Russia  has  arisen.  This  too,  and  above  all  other 
things,  was  Peter's  work. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE   ECCLESIASTICAL   REFORMS   AND   THE   SUPPRESSION 
OF   THE   PATRIARCHATE 

I.  The  Church — Feofan  Prokopovitch — Intellectual  Propaganda  and  Ecclesi- 
astical Reform — Precarious  condition  of  the  ancient  ^Iuscovite  Church — 
Material  prosperity,  moral  degradation — The  Raskol — The  Reform  forced 
on  the  Reformer — The  death  of  the  Patriarch  Adrian  opens  the  way. 

II.  TJu  Patriarchate — A  temporary  guardian  of  the  Patriarclial  throne — Stephen 
lavorski — Peter  first  attacks  the  Monasteries — The  Black  Clergy  submit 
— The  revolt  of  the  Raskolniks — The  struggle — It  carries  Peter  away — • 
Stephen  lavorski  betrays  his  mission  and  cheats  the  Government — The 
conflict — Gradual  destruction  of  the  Patriarchal  authority — An  open  void 
— A  more  radical  reform  necessary. 

II.  7he  Holy  Synod — Ecclesiastical  regulations — Programme  and  pamphlet — 
Universal  discontent — It  does  not  check  the  Reformer — Suppression  of 
the  Patriarchate — Establishment  of  the  Holy  Synod — The  spirit  of  the 
Reform — Results. 


FEOFAN  Prokopovitch  came  into  the  world  at  Kief  in 
1 68 1.  By  his  origin,  he  belonged  to  the  sphere  of  Polish 
influence,  and,  by  his  education,  to  the  Catholic  Church. 
He  first  studied  in  a  Uniate  School,  and  then  was  sent  to 
Rome.  Thence  he  brought  back  a  hatred  for  Catholicism, 
a  mind  open  to  all  the  ideas  and  thoughts  of  the  century,  to 
philosophy,  science,  and  politics,  and  even  certain  Lutheran 
tendencies.  Long  before  his  acquaintance  with  Peter,  while 
still  nothing  but  an  ordinary  teacher  of  theology,  he 
became  known  as  a  restless  spirit,  an  innovator,  a  partisan 
of  all  bold  action.^  He  belonged  to  the  movement  of  which 
Peter  himself  was  the  outcome,  and  which  had  already 
reached  the  foot  of  the  altar.  The  moral  features  of  this 
priest  were,  in  themselves,  a  novelty  in  Russia.  He  was  the 
type,  unknown  in  those  days,  and  almost  extinct  in  these,  of 

'  Pickarski,  vol.  i.  p.  4S1. 

441 


442  PETER  THE  GREAT 

the  great  Western  Prelate.  Nothing  was  lacking.  He  hail 
the  varied  knowledge,  the  literary  and  artistic  taste,  tiie 
ambition,  the  spirit  of  intrigue,  the  touch  of  scc[)ticisni,  and 
the  sybaritic  instuicts.  Proi)okovitch  had  a  library  of 
30,000  volumes,  he  kept  open  house,  he  never  ate  meat 
from  one  year's  end  to  the  other,  but  every  year  1500  salmon, 
21,000  fresh-water  herrings,  11  poods  of  caviare,  and  as 
many  barrels  of  smoked  fish  of  various  kinds,  were  con- 
sumed at  his  table.  He  lived  freely,  and  gave  alms  equally 
freely.  In  1 701,  he  established  a  school,  the  best  of  that 
period,  in  one  of  his  houses  in  St.  Petersburg.  The  instruc- 
tions drawn  up  for  its  guidance  might  iiave  been  compiled 
by  a  full-fledged  Jesuit,  and  the  teachers,  in  several  cases, 
were  foreigners  and  Lutherans.  He  wrote  verses  and  plays, 
which  he  caused  the  pupils  in  his  school  to  perform.  He 
was  heard  to  say,  when  he  was  lying  on  his  deathbed,  in 
1736, 'Oh!  head,  head,  thou  hast  been  drunk  with  know- 
ledge ;  where  wilt  thou  rest  now  ? '  ^ 

The  movement  which  bore  him  along  originated  largcl\', 
as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  in  a  Polish  and  Little  Russian 
circle,  which  gave  birth  to  a  whole  generation  of  open-minded 
and  cultivated  men.  It  supplied  Peter  with  his  principal 
resources  and  chief  helpers,  both  in  his  educational  under- 
takings, and  his  ecclesiastical  reforms.  Before  Prokopo- 
vitch's  time,  another  Little  Russsian  priest,  Dimitri,  Bishop 
of  Rostov,  served  the  Reformer  with  tongue  and  pen.  '  Is 
it  better  to  cut  our  beards  or  to  have  our  heads  cut  off?'  he 
was  asked,  and  he  replied,  '  Will  your  head  grow  again, 
after  it  has  been  cut  off?'^  Feofan,  more  intelligent 
and  energetic,  was  to  do  a  different  work.  He  was  to  be 
Peter's  haltering  ram,  to  break  down  the  defences  of  the  old 
Muscovite  Church. 

This  was  a  fortress  which  the  great  reform  could  not 
leave  unbreached  ;  and  indeed,  apart  from  any  external 
interference,  it  was  tottering  to  its  fall.  Priests  and  monks, 
white  clergy  and  black,  formed  a  world  apart ;  they  were 
numerous,  [powerful,  rich,  and  utterh'  degraded.  The  Church 
jiroperty  was  enormous,  the  monasteries  owned  more  than 
900,000  serfs, — one  alone,  that  of  St.  Sergius,  near  Moscow, 
possessed    92,000   serfs,   besides    fisheries,    mills,   fields    and 

*  Tsliislovilch,  f>io:;raphy  of  Feofan  Prokopovitch  (Si.  Petersburg,  lS68). 
^  Soiovief,  vul.  XV.  pp.  125,  126. 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  REFORMS  443 

forests  without  number.  The  Archimandrites  who  ruled 
these  convents,  wore  diamond  buckles  on  their  shoes  ;  all 
the  clergy  lived  freely,  many  in  scandalous  luxury.  The 
most  characteristic  trait  of  the  Russian  family  life  of  that 
period,  was  its  isolation.  Each  household  lived  apart,  and 
every  householder  desired  to  have  a  church  and  priest  of 
his  own.  In  default  of  this,  a  family  would  deposit  a 
sacred  picture  within  the  parish  church,  and  never  pray 
before  any  other.  When  means  were  not  sufficient  to  hire 
a  priest  by  the  year,  one  or  several  were  engaged  by  the 
hour,  for  special  ceremonies.  Priests  stood  in  the  public 
squares,  and  waited  to  be  hired. 

The  power  of  the  clergy  in  the  State  was  enormous. 
Peter's  ancestor,  the  Patriarch  Philaretus,  ruled  the  country, 
from  1619  to  1633,  in  the  name  of  his  brother  Michael,  the 
first  of  the  Romanofs.  The  Patriarch  Nicone  held  out 
against  the  Tsar  Alexis,  who,  in  order  to  overcome  his 
resistance,  was  forced  to  appeal  to  the  rival  Patriarchs  of 
Alexandria  and  Antioch.  Catholic  influences,  and  the 
weakness  of  the  civil  power,  had  imparted  a  Papal  air  to 
the  Ecclesiastical  Government,  but,  as  I  have  already 
pointed  out,  this  tremendous  position  was  not  counter- 
balanced by  any  virtue,  or  moral  strength.  The  priests, 
sought  after  as  they  were,  knew  the  routine  of  their  ritual, 
but  they  had  forgotten  how  to  treat  men's  souls.  They  were 
far  too  prosperous,  besides  being  too  ignorant.  In  the  year 
1700,  there  were  only  150  pupils  in  the  Moscow  Ecclesiastical 
Academy,  and  these  lived  a  life  of  idleness,  within  a  building 
which  was  rapidly  falling  into  decay.  Godunof  rendered  a 
doubtful  service  to  his  Church,  in  1589,  when  he  ensured  its 
independence  by  the  final  rupture  of  the  bond  that  con- 
nected it  with  the  CEcumenical  Patriarch  of  Constantinople. 
The  Russian  Church  had,  indeed,  a  separate  head  after  that 
period,  but,  in  another  sense,  that  head  had  been  cut  off. 
The  Moscow  Patriarch's  authority  was  purely  administra- 
tive ;  spiritual  power,  properly  so  called,  slipped  from  his 
grasp.  He  could  not  even  interpret  questions  of  faith  and 
dogma  ;  all  these  matters  were  in  the  hands  of  the  CEcume- 
nical Council,  and  no  meeting  of  that  Council  was  probable 
or  even  possible.  When  tlie  Church  lost  the  power  of 
touching  these  problems,  she  lost  the  principle  of  life  and 
motion.      She   was    doomed    to   inertia.      When    she    tried 


444  PETER  THE  GREAT 

to  bestir  herself,  the  Kaskol  straightway  rose  in  her  path. 
A  mere  attempt  at  innovation,  in  the  very  limited  field  of 
the  external  formula  of  devotion,  raised  a  shriek  of  rebellion 
from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other.  The  Patriarchate, 
as  an  organ  of  administration,  was  already  discredited  and 
broken-down. 

This  reform,  then,  like  others,  was  forced  on  the  Reformer. 
He  was  not  sorry,  we  may  be  sure,  to  seize  the  opportunity  ; 
the  legacy  of  Philarctus  and  Nicone  would  have  been  a 
most  inconvenient  element  in  tlie  State  he  wished  to  bring 
into  existence.  The  young  Sovereign's  intimacies  in  the 
German  quarter,  and  his  visits  to  Holland  and  to  England, 
had  not  prepared  his  mind  to  accept  any  idea  of  divided 
power,  nor  even  the  scholastic  principle  of  the  two  planets, 
which  shed  an  independent  light  on  the  peoples  of  the 
earth.  When  the  Patriarch  Adrian  ventured  to  find  fault 
with  the  Tsar's  English  tobacco  treaty,  he  received  a  cutting 
reply:  'Is  the  Patriarch  the  director  of  my  customs?' 
inquired  Peter.  Yet,  in  this  new  matter,  he  went  care- 
fully. Indifferent  as  he  was  to  the  wills  of  other  men,  he 
seems  to  have  shrunk  from  offending  their  consciences. 
He  left  the  Pontiff  on  his  throne,  and  when,  during  his 
absence,  and  even  sometimes  in  his  presence,  the  spiritual 
ruler  took  on  the  air  of  presiding  over  the  secular  Govern- 
ment of  Moscow,  he  patiently  endured  it.  But  the  news  of 
the  Patriarch's  death,  in  October  1700,  came  as  a  sound  of 
victory  to  the  monarch. 

II 

Kourbatof  is  believed  to  have  advised  the  Tsar  to  put  off 
appointing  a  successor  to  the  office.  Ha^i  the  idea  of  the 
suppression  of  the  Patriarchate  already  occurred  to  him  ?  I 
hardly  think  so.  His  plan  at  that  moment  would  rather 
appear  to  have  been  to  deprive  the  vacant  office  of  part  of 
its  prerogatives,  and  to  confer  it,  at  a  later  date,  on  some 
more  submissive  holder.  Advantage  was  to  be  taken  of  the 
temporary  absence  of  the  master  to  sweep  out  his  house 
and  make  the  necessary  repairs.  A  ukase,  dated  i6th 
December  1700,  provided  for  the  provisional  administration 
of  ecclesiastical  affairs,  by  a  body  appointed  for  the  purpose; 
the    different    branches    of   the    business   were    confided    to 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  REFORMS  445 

various  departments,  and  the  most  important  matters  were 
nominally  confided  to  a  '  temporary  guardian  of  the 
Pontifical  throne.' 

This  post  was  conferred  upon  a  Little-Russian.  Stephen 
lavorski,  Bishop  of  Riazan  and  Moscow,  was  born  at  Kief, 
and  educated  in  foreign  schools.  Peter  deliberately  de- 
prived him  of  the  management  of  the  monasteries,  which 
he  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  department,  presided  over 
by  a  layman,  Moussin-Poushkin.  In  this  quarter  the  first 
clearance  was  to  be  made.  The  convents  contained  an 
enormous  floating  population  of  men  and  women,  most  of 
whom  had  never  dreamt  of  taking  vows.  These  mock 
monks  and  nuns,  who  had  assumed  the  conventual  habit  to 
escape  from  the  results  of  some  intrigue,  to  avoid  perform- 
ing some  unpleasant  duty,  or  simply  to  enjoy  the  sweets  of 
well-fed  idleness,  travelled  from  one  monastery  to  another, 
scouring  the  country  and  the  towns,  and  living  a  life  of 
scandalous  profligacy.  Two  radical  measures  were  at  once 
adopted.  A  general  census  was  taken  of  all  monks  and 
nuns,  whose  comings  and  goings  were  in  future  to  be  regu- 
lated by  the  Sovereign.  The  conventual  garb  was  hence- 
forth not  to  be  considered  to  constitute  the  conventual  con- 
dition. Further,  the  convent  revenues  were,  after  a  fashion, 
confiscated  ;  all  income  was  to  be  paid  to  the  department 
directed  by  Moussin-Poushkin  ;  the  monasteries  were  to 
receive  an  amount  sufficient  for  their  actual  needs,  and  the 
surplus  was  to  be  spent  in  supporting  charitable  institutions. 

This  reform  had  a  result  which  Peter  had  not  foreseen. 
Left  to  themselves,  the  clergy  would  have  submitted  tamely. 
The  Tsar's  absolute  power  in  temporal  matters  was  a  tradi- 
tion of  the  Church  itself.  When  the  priests  refused  to  con- 
tribute to  the  expenses  of  his  war  with  the  Tartars,  Ivan 
Vassilevitch  forced  tw^enty  of  them  to  fight  with  as  many 
bears  in  a  sort  of  circus.^  Peter  was  not  driven  to  such 
lengths  as  these,  but  Prokopovitch,  acting  as  his  mouthpiece, 
openly  declared  that  any  pretension,  by  priest  or  monk,  to 
independence  of  the  Tsar's  will,  was  a  Popish  delusion-  The 
call  to  resistance  came  from  without.  The  monks'  cause,  which 
they  themselves  had  almost  utterly  abandoned,  was  taken  up 
by  other  malcontents,  who  carried  it  out  of  its  proper  limits, 

'  Galitzin's  Memoirs  (Paris,  1867),  p.  410. 
"^  Tshistovilch,  Life  of  J^rokofoviUh,  p.  29. 


446  PETER  THE  GREAT 

and  invested  it  with  a  purely  religious  character.'  The 
standard  of  insurrection  was  raised  by  the  Ras/coiniks.  Peter 
was  astounded,  and  no  wonder.  Me  had  never  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  Raskol.  The  movement  had  been 
aroused  by  Niconc's  action,  before  his  birth,  somewhere 
about  1666,  and  he  had  never  taken  any  interest  in  those 
ritualistic  questions  which  were  at  the  bottom  of  the  great 
discussion.  There  is  a  sort  of  mingled  pity  and  scorn  in 
his  language  about  the  unfortunate  sectarians,  whom  the 
official  Church  desired  to  persecute:  'Why  make  mart}-rs 
of  them,  they  are  too  foolish  for  that.^'^  And  why  not,  he 
further  asked,  live  at  peace  with  them  ?  A  certain  number, 
residing  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Olonets,  on  the  banks  of 
the  Wyga,  near  a  recently  established  factory,  were  accused, 
in  the  course  of  the  year  1700,  of  desiring  to  form  a 
settlement,  and  a  regular  religious  community.  The  Tsar 
wrote,  'Disagreeable  neighbours,  you  think  .^  A  piece  of 
good  luck  !  Let  them  come  and  work  at  the  forges.  If 
they  will  do  that,  they  shall  pray  after  their  own  fashion.' ^ 

But  the  Raskobiiks  themselves,  unfortunately,  were  much 
less  peaceably  inclined.  A  ruler  who  was  friendly  to  Lefort 
and  Gordon, — the  one  a  Calvinist,  and  the  other  a  Catholic, 
— was  an  object  of  suspicion  in  the  eyes  of  such  austere 
believers.  He  must  be  the  accomplice,  even  if  he  were  not 
the  author,  of  the  impious  innovations  which  revolted  the 
consciences  of  the  Faithful.  He  might  even  be  Antichrist. 
Besides  all  this,  the  defence  of  religion  was  an  attractive 
phrase,  and  these  defenders  were  most  valuable  allies.  Like 
most  persecuted  classes,  they  were  brave,  and  ended  by 
becoming  important.  Hard-working,  temperate  and  econo- 
mical, relatively  well  taught, — having,  at  all  events,  learnt 
to  read  for  the  sake  of  understanding  the  subjects  of  their 
eager  discussions, — they  soon  rose  to  wealth,  influence,  and 
consideration.  They  bribed  officials,  were  protected  in  high 
quarters,  took  advantage  of  the  ignorance  of  the  official 
clergy,  and  soon  grew  powerful.  They  were  sought  for, 
their  supjjort  was  solicited,  and  their  j)rotests  against  the 
reform  of  the  national  ritual  was  gradually  united  with,  and 
fused    into,   the   universal    opjxxsition  to  Peter's  reforms    in 

*  Solovief,  vol.  xvi.  p.  295. 

*  Ibid.    See  also  'J he  Raskol  and  the  Russian  Church  in  the  Days  of  Peter  the 
Great  (.St.  Petersburg,  1S95),  p.  xiii.,  etc.,  p.  327,  etc. 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  REFORMS  447 

general.  An  eloquent  proof  of  this  fact  is  found  in  the 
legend  which  describes  Peter  as  Nicone's  illegitimate  son. 
The  monks'  cause  was  certainly  strengthened  by  this  story. 

The  Reformer,  then,  was  forced  to  wrestle  with  the  Ras- 
kolniks.  But  how  was  this  to  be  done,  unless  he  first  made 
common  cause  with  that  official  Church  whose  privileges 
he  attempted  to  break  down,  whenever  they  came  into 
collision  with  his  own  ?  He  was  driven  into  this  course, 
unwillingly  enough.     At  first  he  endeavoured  to  avoid  it. 

As  in  the  case  of  the  monks,  he  ordered  a  Census 
and  a  Fiscal  measure : — the  Raskolniks,  rich  as  they  were, 
refused  to  share  the  common  expenses  ;  nothing  could  force 
them  either  into  the  Army,  or  into  the  Administration ;  the 
Tsar  was  determined  they  should  pay  for  their  privileges, 
and  doubled  their  taxes.^  Naturally  they  refused  to  pay, 
and  the  struggle  began.  It  soon  raged  round  Peter.  In 
September  17 18,  George  Rjevski  went  with  the  monk 
Pitirim,  a  converted  Raskolnik,  to  Nijni-Novgorod,  one  of 
the  principal  centres  of  the  Raskol,  where  he  laboured, 
k'nout  in  hand,  to  re-establish  order.  Meanwhile  Stephen 
lavorski  used  the  same  arms  to  repress  the  Calvinist  and 
Lutheran  heresies.  In  1717,  the  wife  of  an  inferior  employe, 
in  the  Department  of  Provincial  Affairs,  named  Nathalia 
Zima,  who  was  accused  of  Protestant  leanings,  was  knouted 
three  times,  receiving  eighty-five  blows  in  all,  and  only  saved 
her  life  by  abjuring  her  errors.  Other,  and  less  docile 
heretics,  were  executed,  Peter  himself  signing  the  sentences.^ 

This  was  in  utter  contradiction  to  the  ideas,  principles, 
and  tendencies,  the  Reformer  had  intended  to  put  forward 
with  the  assistance  of  that  very  man,  lavorski.  But,  since  his 
elevation,  the  'temporary  guardian  of  the  Pontifical  throne' 
had  changed  his  skin.  Whether  out  of  care  for  his  budding 
popularity,  or  from  a  sense  of  his  recently  assumed  responsi- 
bilities, he  yearly  inclined,  more  and  more,  not  to  Ortho- 
doxy only  in  all  its  ancient  fanaticism,  narrov/  and  un- 
compromising, but  to  the  old  Muscovite  instinct  of  rebellion 
against  any  idea  of  progress.  In  1712,  he  actually  ventured 
to  find  fault  with  the  Administrative  Reforms  of  the  new 
regime,  and  thundered,  from  the  pulpit,  against  the  un- 
popular fiscal  regulations ! 

^  Collected  Laws,  pp.  2991,  2996. 
*  Solovief,  vol.  xvi.  pp.  302,  315. 


448  PETER  THE  GREAT 

With  such  a  companion,  Peter  could  scarcely  fail  to  go 
astray.  Tlie  acknouIccl<,nncnt  of  liis  error,  which,  in 
characteristic  fashion,  he  tiid  not  hesitate  to  make,  was  to 
open  out  new  destinies  before  the  official  church  and  its 
leader. 

Before  the  final  experience  of  their  common  campaign 
against  the  Knslo/,  and  his  own  consequent  disgust, 
the  Reformer  felt  the  necessity  of  protecting  himself  and 
liis  work  against  this  hostile  leader,  by  gradually  reducing 
the  already  diminished  power  and  privileges  allotted  to 
him.  lavorski's  authority,  even  on  those  questions  which 
had  been  left  in  his  hands,  was  soon  further  limited  ; — first, 
by  an  Episcopal  Council,  which  met  periodically  at  Moscow, 
and  then  by  increasing  interference  on  the  part  of  Moussin- 
Poushkin.  His  last  shadow  of  independence  disappeared, 
when  the  Senate  was  created  in  171 1.  Church  affairs  were, 
in  future,  to  be  submitted,  like  all  others,  to  the  supreme 
jurisdiction  of  this  newly-constituted  body.  The  Patriarch's 
representative  could  not  even  appoint  an  Arliire'i  in  an 
Eparchy,  without  the  approval  of  the  Senate.  When  he 
tried  to  intervene  in  the  discussions,  which  arbitrarily 
disposed  of  the  interests  committed  to  his  care,  and  to  claim 
his  own  rights,  he  was  brutally  treated,  and  quitted  the 
Assembly  in  tears.^  In  1718,  Peter,  suspecting  his 
former  favourite  of  connivance  with  Alexis,  removed  him 
from  Moscow,  kept  him  at  St.  Petersburg  under  his  own 
eye  and  hand,  and  gave  him  a  ri\al  in  the  person  of 
Prokopovitch,  whom  he  created  Bishop  of  Pskof,  and  whose 
influence  steadily  increased. 

By  the  year  1720,  scarcely  a  trace  of  the  ancient 
power  and  prestige  of  the  Patriarchs  remained.  Every- 
thing had  passed  out  of  lavorski's  hands.  But  Peter  soon 
perceived  the  abnormality  of  a  state  of  things,  whereby 
the  spiritual  authority  was  subordinated,  not  to  that  of  the 
Sovereign  onl}', — Bj'zantine  tradition  was  not  opposed  to  that 
— but  to  a  mere  department  of  his  Government.  The  clergy 
had  grown  tame  enough,  but  was  it  still  worthy  of  its  name  .-* 
It  was  more  like  a  regiment,  kept  under  military  discipline, 
but  bereft  of  the  honour  of  the  flag.  The  Abbot  flogged  his 
monks,  the  Bishop  flogged  his  Abbots,  the  Government 
knouted  the  Jiishop,  and  then  degraded  him  and  sent  hiui 

'  Olchc'vski,  The  Holy  Synod  under  Peter  the  Great  (Kief,  1894),  p.  9. 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  REFORMS  449 

into  exile.  All  classes,  high  and  low,  from  the  top  of  the 
ladder  to  the  bottom,  were  falling  into  the  same  state  of 
degradation,  into  idleness,  ignorance,  drunkenness,  and  the 
worst  vice.  Such  a  condition  of  things  could  not  continue. 
Some  change  was  indispensable.  That  presbyterian  institu- 
tion, known  as  the  Holy  Synod,  dictated  by  imperious 
necessity,  and  inspired  by  the  friends  of  Prokopovitch,  who 
owed  the  greater  part  of  his  knowledge  to  such  Protestant 
theologians  as  Ouensted  and  Gerhard,  was  summoned,  in 
172 1,  to  draw  Russia  out  of  the  abyss,  which  threatened  to 
eiiFulf  her  religious  and  moral  future. 


Ill 

The  idea  of  the  Holy  Synod  was  occupying  Peter's 
attention  in  17 18,  and  some  people  have  thought  the  com- 
plicity of  the  clergy  in  the  rebellion  of  the  Tsarevitch  had 
something  to  do  with  his  resolution.^  But  I  am  inclined 
to  believe  he  took  a  broader  view.  In  the  following  year, 
he  drew  up,  with  Prokopovitch's  assistance,  a  Code  of 
regulations,  intended  to  justify  the  new  Reform,  and  explain 
its  basis.  The  document  is  a  curious  one  ; — a  striking  picture 
of  the  ecclesiastical  customs  of  the  time,  in  which  the 
Bishop's  satirical  turn  finds  free  play,  and  a  strange  mixture 
of  ideas  and  doctrines,  drawn  from  the  most  distant  corners 
of  the  Western  world  of  religion,  philosophy,  and  politics. 
The  advantages  of  a  collective  authority  are  forcibly  main- 
tained, with  a  strange  indifference  to  the  arguments  thus 
supplied  against  the  Sovereign's  own  personal  and  individual 
I)Ower.  No  other  proof  could  be  needed  of  Peter's  incapacity 
for  abstract  conceptions. 

These  Regulations,  which  were  read,  before  a  special 
meeting  of  the  Senate  and  the  Episcopal  Council,  and 
sent  into  every  Eparchy,  to  be  signed  by  the  Bishops 
and  the  principal  Archimandrites,  raised  a  perfect  tempest 
of  fury.  They  were  at  once  recognised  for  what  they 
were — a  pamphlet,  whose  authors  put  themselves  for- 
ward as  the  physicians  of  men's  souls,  and,  before  citing 
their  chosen  remedies,  described  the  disease  with  terrible 
exactness.  They  desired  to  remove  out  of  the  priesthood 
all  that  numerous  body  who  had  entered  it  as  a  matter  of 

^  Piorliiiji's  Kussia  and  the  Sorbouue,  p.  47. 


4SO  PETER  THE  GREAT 

calculation,  and  wilhout  any  real  vocation.  The  Episcopal 
Schools,  throuLili  which  future  candidates  would  have  to 
pass,  and  the  strict  examinations  to  be  conducted  by  com- 
petent authorities,  until  these  schools  could  be  established, 
were  to  ensure  this  fact.  These  examinations  were  not  only 
to  deal  with  the  knowledge,  but  with  the  moral  worth,  of  the 
future  Popes.  No  priest,  according  to  Peter  and  Prokopo- 
vitch,  must  be  either  a  mystic  or  a  fanatic;  the  examineis 
were  to  make  sure  he  saw  no  visions,  and  had  no  disturb- 
ing dreams.  Domestic  chaplains.  —  the  usual  instruments, 
according  to  this  Regulation,  of  hidden  intrigues,and  the  prime 
movers  in  irregular  marriages, — were  to  be  questioned  and 
tested,  with  special  severity.  As  for  the  priests  who  served 
chapels  kept  up  by  zvidoius,  they  were  to  be  completely 
suppressed.  AH  miraculous  places  not  recognised  by  the 
Holy  S>'nod  were  also  to  be  done  away  with.  Fees  were 
to  be  replaced  by  free-will  offerings,  and  the  'death-tax,'  as 
the  document  describes  the  price  claimed  for  prayers  for  the 
dead,  which,  according  to  custom,  were  offered  for  forty 
days,  was  utterly  forbidden.  The  expenses  of  this  part  of 
the  ritual  were  to  be  paid  by  means  of  a  fixed  tax  on  all 
parishioners. 

But  the  Black  Clergy  were  more  especially  attacked.  No 
man  was  to  enter  a  monastery  before  he  was  thirt\-,  all 
monks  were  to  confess  and  communicate  at  least  four  times 
a  year.  Work  was  to  be  compulsory  in  every  monastery, 
no  monks  were  to  visit  nunneries  or  private  houses  ;  no  nun 
was  to  take  final  vows  before  she  was  fifty,  and  until  the 
final  vows  were  taken  any  female  novice  might  marry.^ 

Discontent,  this  time,  was  universal,  but  Peter  held  on 
his  way.  The  regulation  was  published  on  the  25th  of 
January  I72i,and  on  the  iith  of  the  following  February, 
the  Ecclesiastical  College, — later,  out  of  some  tardy  deference 
to  the  Byzantine  tradition,  entitled  the  Holy  Synod, — held 
its  first  meeting.  The  Patriarchate  was  suppressed.  The 
civil  and  religious  interests  of  the  Church,  with  all  the 
necessary  powers,  legislative,  judicial,  and  administrative — ■ 
these   last   under   the   management    of    a    duly   appointed 

'  This  regulation  was  published  in  Russian,  in  the  Collected  Laws,  No.  3718, 
and  fre(]uently  in  German  transiulions.  See  Catalogue  il-:s  A'/isshu,  265-268.  I 
have  seen  a  cojiy,  |irinted  at  St.  Petersburg  during  the  reign  of  Catherine  n.  ;  in 
this  the  paragraph  as  to  '  widows'  chaplains '  was  suppressetl,  but,  through  some 
carelessness,  it  had  remained  in  the  Index. 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  REFORMS  451 

Government  official — were  made  over  to  a  permanent 
Assembly,  in  which  an  ordinary  priest  might  sit,  in  the 
company  of  Bishops.  This  body  held  equal  rank  with  the 
Senate,  and  took  precedence  of  all  other  Administrative 
bodies. 

It  should  be  remembered  that,  at  this  period,  the  substitu- 
tion of  administrative  bodies,  for  individual  administrative 
chiefs,  was  much  in  fashion  in  all  Western  countries.  Peter 
had  just  returned  from  Paris,  where  Louis  XIV. 's  ministers 
had  given  place  to  the  Councils  of  the  Regency.  And  again, 
this  revolution  of  the  Tsar's  may  be  looked  on  as  the  con- 
sequence of  a  progressive  evolution,  two  centuries  old  already, 
which  had  modified  the  constitution  of  the  Eastern  Churches. 
The  Holy  Synod  was  to  replace,  to  a  certain  extent,  the 
Patriarch,  who  had  been  suppressed,  and  the  Council,  which 
had  disappeared.  And  the  six  Oriental  Churches,  one  after 
the  other,  organised  themselves  on  this  same  pattern.  Finally, 
the  reaction  against  the  Papacy,  so  strong  in  the  old 
Patriarchate,  was  evidenced  in  the  Democratic  and  Presby- 
terian nature  of  the  institution  which  took  its  place. 

This,  the  most  sharply  contested,  perhaps,  of  all  Peter's 
reforms,  has,  since  his  time,  received  the  double  sanction  of 
internal  duration,  and  external  expansion.  I  will  not  take 
upon  myself  to  discuss  the  value  of  the  work.  But  it  has 
been  a  lasting  one.  The  Holy  Synod  still  sits  at  St.  Peters- 
burg. Has  it  fulfilled  its  Founder's  expectations?  Has  it 
given,  or  brought  back,  to  the  Russian  Church,  together  with 
her  dignity,  independence,  and  power,  her  old  authority  over 
human  souls,  and  the  virtue  necessary  to  the  wielding  of  it  ? 
These  are  matters  which  I  cannot  broach,  without  venturing 
into  burning  questions,  which  I  have  determined  to  avoid. 
The  Reformer's  chief  desire  was  to  take  measures  to  prevent 
the  Church  from  being  a  present  or  future  difficulty,  in  the 
new  State  he  had  called  into  existence  ;  and  no  one  can 
deny  that  his  success,  in  this  respect,  was  admirable  and 
complete. 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE   SOCIAL   REFORM — THE   TAIJLE   OF    RANKS 

Thi  A^obility — Was  Peter  a  social  reformer? — Social  classes  in  ancient 
.Muscovy — Ivan  lu.'s  Slonjilyic  Liotidi — Their  triple  part:  military,  ad- 
ministrative, and  economic  — Peter  turns  them  into  a  Nobility — New  dis- 
trilnition  of  offices  and  privileges — Universal  enrolment — A  table  of  ranks 
— Collectivism. 

The  P,asants — The  rural  population — Two  classes  of  peasants — How  their 
condition  was  influenced  by  Peter's  policy  and  laws — (General  servitude — 
State  rea.-ions — The  greatness  of  Russia  and  its  price — Paid  by  the  peasant. 

The  Aliddle  Class — Peter's  attempt  to  found  one  — Failures  and  inconsis- 
tencies— Municipal  autonomy  and  bureaucracy — Nobles  and  Commons — 
A  far-reaching  work— The  socialisation  of  the  Church. 


Was  Peter  a  social  reformer?  The  title  has  been  denied 
him.  It  has  been  argued  that  the  changes,  important  as 
they  were,  in  the  condition  of  the  various  social  classes  dur- 
ing his  reign,  were  only  the  indirect  consequences,  and,  occa- 
sionally, those  he  had  at  least  foreseen  and  desired,  of  his 
legislative  work.  This  argument  does  not  affect  me.  Obser- 
vation, indeed,  has  taught  me,  that  most  contemporaryrcforms 
of  that  period  had  something  of  this  accidental  quality. 
Peter  made  no  alteration,  either  in  the  constitution  of  the 
various  classes,  or  in  the  nature  of  their  respective  right's  and 
duties.  All  he  did  was  to  mod-fy  their  distribution.  But, 
if  he  did  not  actually  introduce  a  far-reaching  political  and 
social  principle  into  this  reorganisation,  he  certainly  affirmed 
its  existence  in  the  clearest  and  most  energetic  manner.  Let 
us  now,  without  further  discussion  as  to  names,  come  to  facts. 
Even  before  the  Mongol  invasion,  Ancient  Russia  pos- 
sessed three  social  classes,  vaguely  corresponding  to  those  of 
the  Carlovingian  and  Merovingian  periods  in  the  West.  The 
Mouji  or  Notables  bore  some  resemblance  to  the  Rachiui- 

452 


THE  SOCIAL  REFORM— THE  TABLE  OF  RANKS        453 

bonrgs  and  Bons/ioinincs  of  those  days.  Tlicy  have  all 
the  mixed  and  confused  character  of  the  Gallo-Frankish 
aristocracy.  Next  in  order,  the  Liotidi,  like  the  Homines  in 
the  West,  formed  a  compact  body,  comprising  all  the  free 
men  of  the  country.  Last  of  all,  came  the  serf  population. 
This  family  resemblance  may  be  explained  by  the  Norman 
origin  of  the  Russian  State.  This  was  almost  entirely  wiped 
out,  under  the  Mongol  yoke,  by  the  levelling  hand  of  a 
common  servitude  It  was  not  till  the  second  half  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  that  a  commencement  of  organic  life 
began  slowl)^  to  rise  out  of  the  barren  ground.  Ivan  IIL,  in 
his  merciless  endeavour  to  unify  the  country,  gathered  a  new 
group  about  him,  a  class  of  'men  who  gave  service,'  sloujilyi^ 
lioiidi,  who  were,  at  the  same  time,  the  only  landed  pro- 
prietors in  existence — for  the  Sovereign,  in  return  for  com- 
pulsory service,  both  in  time  of  peace  and  in  time  of  war, 
gave  them  hereditary  or  life  interest  in  certain  lands.  From 
the  military,  from  the  administrative,  and  from  the  economic 
point  of  view,  this  body  played  an  important  part,  both  in 
the  State  and  in  society.  These  men  made  war,  helped 
the  Sovereign  to  govern,  and  ovv'ned  the  whole,  or  almost 
the  whole,  of  the  social  capital  of  the  country.  Yet, 
before  Peter's  accession,  this  class  had  no  regularly  con- 
stituted form.  It  was  not  a  caste,  nor  an  aristocracy. 
Peter  was  the  first  to  give  it  this  character,  and  to  bestow 
on  it  a  generic  title  borrowed  from  Polish  phraseology, 
sJdahctstvo,  or  nobility.  Until  that  period,  the  body 
had  remained  somewhat  undefined  and  unsettled  in  char- 
acter, and  even  the  title  conferred  by  the  Tsar  did  not 
entirely  remove  this  embryonic  quality.  The  condition  of 
these  sloujilyic  lioicdi,  or  dvo7'tanie,\wdiS  the  first  to  be  affected 
by  Peter's  reorganisation  of  the  military  and  civil  services. 
Military  service  in  the  provincial  armed  bands,  called  out  in 
case  of  war,  was  exchanged  for  permanent  service  in  stand- 
ing regiments.  Thus  the  budding  aristocracy  was  removed 
out  of  its  natural  surroundings.  The  corporate  instinct, 
which  had  begun  to  develop  in  the  provincial  centres,  was 
broken  up,  and  removed  into  regiments  and  Cfl7-ps  d'arvn^e, 
which  gave  it  a  special  character.  At  the  same  time,  the 
civil  was  separated  from  the  military  service.  The  dvoriaiiit' 
had  formerly  performed  a  double  office.  The)'  had  been 
soldiers  and   magistrates  in  one,  wielding  both  sword  and 


454  PETER  THE  GREAT 

pen.  Now,  cacli  service  was  to  do  its  separate  duty — but 
that  duty  ^rew  all  the  heavier.  The  official,  whether  civil 
or  militar}',  was  laid  hands  on  when  he  was-  fifteen,  and 
worked  till  death  set  him  free.  And  this  was  not  all.  Until 
the  a.^e  of  fifteen,  he  was  expected  to  prepare  himself  to  do 
liis  duty.  He  was  to  study,  and  his  progress  was  to  be 
strictly  examined.  Peter  expected  his  nobility  to  be  a 
nursery  of  officers  and  officials.  The  gaps  in  his  army, 
civil  and  military,  were  to  be  filled  up  with  men  of  lower 
condition,  amongst  whom  the  dvoriatiic  were  to  act  the  part 
of  leaders.  But  this  was  the  Reformer's  only  concession  to 
the  principle  of  a  social  hierarchy.  Faithful  to  the  tendency 
evident  in  those  reforms  which  preceded  his  own  accession, 
he  determined  that  in  his  apportionment  of  the  various 
ranks,  the  claims  of  aristocratic  origin  should  be  balanced 
by  the  democratic  claim  of  merit.  A  peasant  might  rise  to 
official  rank,  and,  by  the  fact  of  his  becoming  an  officer,  he 
became  dzwrianiii  (noble).  There  was  something  fine  about 
this,  but  it  certainly  sounded  the  knell  of  any  autonomous 
distribution  of  social  elements.  Nothing  was  left  but  a 
universal  enrolment  of  the  units  at  disposal,  in  the  ranks 
of  an  official  hierarchy.  The  famous  'Table  of  Ranks,'  pub- 
lished in  172 1,  is  the  official  expression  and  sanction  of  this 
system.  Those  who  served  the  Sovereign  were  thus  divided 
into  three  departments,  the  Army,  the  State,  and  the  Court. 
But  the  staff,  in  each  case,  held  equal  rank.  There  were 
fourteen  classes,  or  degrees  of  official  rank  {tchin),  corre- 
sponding, in  every  department,  like  the  rungs  on  a  triple 
ladder.  The  list  was  headed  by  a  Field- Marshal  on  the 
Military,  and  a  Chancellor  on  the  Civil  side  ;  immediately 
below  these  two,  we  find  a  General,  beside  a  Privy  Councillor, 
and  so  it  goes  on  till  we  come  to  a  Standard-Bearer  and  a 
Departmental  Registrar,  at  the  bottom.  The  same  order  of 
precedence  was  extended  to  families  of  officials — the  wife 
shared  her  husband's  rank,  and  the  daughter  of  a  first-class 
official,  so  long  as  she  remained  unmarried,  held  the  same 
rank  as  the  wife  of  one  of  the  fourth  class. 

This  artificial  classification  clearly  has  nothing  in  common 
with  those  spontaneously  developed  in  other  Kuropean 
societies.  Yet  it  may  perhaps  be  the  only  one  suited  to  the 
country  of  its  birth.  Peter's  acting  Privy  Councillors  and 
Departmental  Registrars  were  nothing  but  a  rej)roduction  of 


THE  SOCIAL  REFORM-THE  TABLE  OF  RANKS        455 

Ivan  IH.'s  sloiijilyic  Jwudi,  in  a  French  or  German  disguise. 
This  pi-rticular  method  of  grouping  the  population  was 
historical  and  traditional  in  Russia,  and  may  very  possibly 
be  bouna  up  with  the  existence  of  a  people,  which,  all 
through  the  centuries,  has  shown  but  little  disposition 
towards  the  formation,  cither  of  a  free  Democracy,  or  of 
a  powerful  Aristocracy.  Peter,  rather  than  let  his  subjects 
wander  at  random,  enrolled  them  all.  Kach  person  was 
given  his  place  and  duty,  and  individual  or  corporate  rights 
and  interests  were,  as  a  general  principle,  subordinated 
to  those  collective  ones  represented  by  the  law  of  the  State. 
A  certain  writer  has  declared  that  Peter,  in  this  respect,  was 
a  century  before  his  time.^  I  should  be  disposed  to  double 
the  period.  His  ])lan  strikes  me  as  bearing  the  closest  re- 
semblance to  modern  Collectivism.  It  remains  to  be  seen 
whether  the  principle  already  affirmed  by  Ivan  IIL  consti- 
tuted a  real  step  in  advance. 

Peter,  when  he  arranged  his  dvoriajiic  into  classes,  and 
carefully  numbered  them,  did  not  overlook  what  they  owed 
him  as  landed  proprietors.  He  invented  a  strange  part, 
vvhich  he  expected  them  to  play ;  they  were  to  serve  the 
State  as  ^  rural  steivards!  This  is  the  real  meaning  of  the 
Ukase  published  on  the  23rd  of  March  17 14,  on  the  subject 
of  tini-personal  inheritance,  the  iedinonasledie,  which  has  been 
wrongly  taken  to  be  a  law  of  entail  on  the  eldest  son.  Peter 
did  indeed,  before  attempting  this  Reform,  inquire  into  all 
the  information  obtainable  on  the  subject,  from  the  Codes  of 
foreign  countries.  But,  after  having  commissioned  Bruce  to 
collect  a  whole  library  of  works  on  the  order  of  property  succes- 
sion in  England,  in  France,  and  at  Venice,  he  finally  fell  back 
on  the  nearest  possible  approach  to  the  local  rights  and  customs 
of  his  own  country.  His  Ukase  simply  confirmed  the  two 
forms  of  ownership  already  existing  in  Russia,  the  vottchiua 
(freehold)  and  \\\& poniicstie  {^^(ti),  with  the  principles  of  transi- 
tion affecting  both.  Thus  he  invented  a  right  of  uni-personal 
inheritance,  united  to  free  testamentary  powers.  The 
dvorianin  must  leave  his  landed  property  intact  to  one  of  his 
children,  but  he  was  free  to  choose  which  that  child  should 
be.  This  was  not  the  principle  of  entail  on  the  first-born 
son  ;  it  was  simply  the  enforcement  of  the  autocratic  spirit 
in  domestic  life.     There  was  nothing  in  the  system  approach- 

^  Filippof,  Peter  the  Great'' s  Reform  of  the  Penal  Code,  p.  Sv 
30 


456  PETER  THE  GREAT 

iiiff  to  that  known  as  a  '  majorat!  Peter  did  ccrtairly  con- 
sider the  question  of  the  impoverishment  of  the  .lobiHty, 
and  hoped  to  put  a  stop  to  it,  b)-  preventin^r  the  suodivision 
of  their  fortunes.  Hut  he  looked  at  the  matter  from  his 
personal  point  of  view,  and  therefore  in  the  interests  of  the 
State.  The  dvoriaiii^  must  be  rich,  if  they  were  to  serve 
him  as  he  expected  to  be  served,  spend  all  their  lives  work- 
inf^,  unpaid,  in  his  armies  and  his  State  Offices,  and  build 
palaces  at  St.  Petersburg  into  the  barijjain.  Now,  speaking 
generally,  they  were  completely  ruined  ;  even  the  Ruriko- 
vitch  were  forced  to  earn  their  bread  in  private  houses. 
Prince  Bielosielski  was  acting  as  major-domo  in  the  house 
of  a  rich  merchant,  and  Prince  Viaziemski  managed  the 
landed  property  of  an  upstart  parvenu.^ 

The  Tsar  also  desired  to  constitute  a  class  of  well-born 
younger  sons,  who  would  form  an  excellent  nursery  for 
commerce  and  industry.  The  disinherited  sons  of  these 
Dvoriatiin  were  not  to  lose  caste  by  going  into  trade,  and, 
after  seven  years'  soldiering,  ten  in  the  Civil  Service,  and 
fifteen  in  commerce  or  industry, — service  of  some  sort  they 
must  give  ! — they  had  the  right  to  acquire  landed  property, 
and  thus  retake  their  place  in  the  so-called  aristocracy  they 
liad  been  forced  to  leave.  Those  who  would  not  work  were 
not  to  possess  anything,  and  those  who  would  not  learn  were 
even  denied  the  right  to  marr}'. 

And  finally,  Peter  desired  to  improve  the  condition  of  the 
Serfs.  Their  owners,  if  they  were  richer,  were  likely  to  be 
more  merciful.  All  this  is  expressed  in  the  Ukase,  which 
even  contains  phrases  about  the  glory  of  the  'illustrious 
families'  which  the  legislator  proposes  to  protect.  But  this 
was  not  the  real  question.  The  law  was  general  in  its 
application,  the  rule  of  uni-personal  inheritance  touched 
every  form  of  real  property,  from  arable  fields  to  drapers' 
shops,  and  Peter's  chief  anxiety  was  to  have  security,  both 
in  town  and  country,  for  the  payment  of  his  taxes,  and  the 
performance  of  the  service  exacted  by  the  State  from  every 
subject.  1  hese  sole  inheritors  were  the  Tsar's  cJiief  deputies, 
and  his  law  was,  above  all  things,  a  fiscal  measure. 

It  failed  of  success.  When,  seventeen  years  later,  the 
F.mpress  Anne  repealed  it,  she  declared  her  reason  to  be 
that  its  provisions  had  produced  no  effect.    The  great  mass  oi 

^  K.irnovitch,  Great  Russian  Fortunes,  p.  33. 


THE  SOCIAL  REFORM— THE  TABLE  OF  RANKS        457 

landed  proprietors  had  contrived  to  elude  the  lawgiver's  will. 
Only  two  fortunes  had  been  built  up  by  its  means — those  of 
the  Sheremetief  and  Kantemir  families.^  Entail  on  the 
first-born  son,  according  to  the  English  system,  has  never 
taken  real  hold  in  Russia ;  there  are  not  more  than  forty 
instances  of  it  in  existence,  in  the  present  day,  throughout 
the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  that  great  Emi)ire. 

II 

At  Peter's  accession,  the  rural  population  of  Russia,  as 
apart  from  the  landed  proprietors,  consisted  of  two  principal 
classes  of  peasants,  greatly  differing  from  each  other,  from 
the  political,  judicial,  and  economic  point  of  view — the 
Ivn's/ur//u'  and  the  Holopy.  Another  class  of  ^ free  men,'  who 
tilled  the  ground,  was  rapidly  disappearing.  The  Krcstianie 
had  two  masters,  the  State  and  their  owners.  Each  of  these 
had  a  right  to  tax  them,  and  demand  forced  labour  of  them. 
They  lived  in  perpetual  serfdom,  and  might  be  sold,  with,  or 
without,  the  ground  they  tilled.  The  Holopy,  or,  at  all  events, 
the  Holopy  kabaliiyic  or  '  mortgaged '  peasants  (the  Polynie 
holopy,  or  '  full  serfs,'  had  almost  disappeared  at  this  period) 
owed  nothing  to  the  State,  and  were  only  united  to  the 
owners  of  the  land  on  which  they  lived,  by  a  personal  bond, 
a  kind  of  mortgage  (kabala)  on  their  own  persons,  agreed  to 
by  themselves,  and  which  ended  with  the  death  of  their 
holder.  These  could  not  be  sold  on  any  pretence  whatever. 
Peter's  policy,  with  regard  to  this  population,  was  a  double 
one.  He  intervened,  in  its  favour,  with  a  series  of  regulations 
of  a  liberal  and  humanitarian  tendency.  His  ukases  forbade 
the  sale  of  serfs,  except  in  cases  of  absolute  necessity,  and 
insisted,  in  such  cases,  on  whole  families  being  kept  together. 
Special  commissioners  were  appointed  to  prevent  abuses, 
etc.-  But  the  indirect  action  of  his  government  and  legisla- 
tion was  very  different.  Its  invariable  tendency  was  to  fuse 
the  two  categories  of  peasants,  and  to  tighten  the  yoke  of 
serfdom  about  their  necks.  This  fusion,  politically  speak- 
ing, took  place  in  the  year  1705.  when  compulsory  military 
service  was  imposed  on  the  holopy  by  ukase.  Judicially  and 
economically  speaking,  the  general  census  of  1718,  and  a 

*  Karncjviuii,  Great  Russian  Fortunes,  p.  33, 
2  Collected  Laws,  3294,  3770  (1719  and  1721). 


4S8  PETER  THE  GREAT 

series  of  ukases  dcaliiif^  with  the  composition  of  the  census 
papers,  published  between  1720  and  1722,  completed  the 
operation.  At  that  period  the  land  tax  was  replaced  by  a 
poll  tax,  and  the  Sovereign's  chief  object  became  to  find  the 
greatest  possible  number  of  taxable  heads  or  '  soii/s.'  How 
was  this  to  be  done  ?  The  landed  proprietors,  who  were 
called  upon  to  play  the  part  of  tax-collectors,  and  made 
responsible  for  the  new  tax,  neither  could  nor  would  be 
answerable  for  any  '  souls '  save  those  in  their  own  posses- 
sion, over  whom  they  had  complete  control  ;  and  they, 
naturally,  endeavoured  to  diminish  the  number  borne  on  the 
census  papers,  while  the  State  did  all  in  its  power  to  increase 
it.  The  State  did  not  succeed  in  carrying  the  day,  until  it 
consented  to  agree  to  the  general  and  complete  serfdom  of 
the  whole  body  of  the  agricultural  population.  Every 
peasant  appearing  on  the  list  had  to  be  considered  as  the 
permanent  serf  of  the  person  answerable  for  him,  who,  other- 
wise, refused  that  responsibility.  1  hus,  little  by  little,  the 
whole  peasantry  was  swallowed  up.^ 

This  certainly  was  Peter's  work.  Soon  it  was  completed 
by  a  new  series  of  ukases,  the  object  of  which  was  to  put  a 
stop  to  the  exodus  of  peasants,  who  fled  from  this  fresh 
severity,  and  crowded  to  take  refuge  beyond  the  frontier,  in 
the  border  districts  of  Poland.  These  were  so  many  locks 
on  the  prison  of  universal  serfdom.  Then  a  fresh  class  of 
serfs  was  called  inte  existence.  There  were  no  workmen 
for  the  factories  the  Reformer  had  established.  Where  were 
these  to  be  found  ?  The  serfs  supplied  the  only  nnmual 
labour  known  to  the  country  ;  such  a  thing  as  free  labour 
did  not  exist.  There  must  be  factory  serfs  then,  as  well  as 
agricultural  serfs.  And  the  manufacturers  received  permis- 
sion to  recruit  their  necessary  staff  by  purchase." 

Peter  was  no  inhuman  Sovereign  ;  this  is  eloquently 
proved  by  the  sixty  charitable 'establishments  called  into 
existence,  in  1701,  in  connection  with  the  Moscow  churches.' 
But  the  State  reasons  he  represented  were  a  hard  and 
even  a  cruel  law.     The  grandeur  and  the  glory  he  bestowed 

'  Klioutchevslsi,  The  Poll  Tux  and  its  lujlueiue  on  the  Cotuli/ion  of  the 
Peasantry,  in  Kiissian  Thou<;ht  (Rousskoia  Mysl,  i8S6). 

2  Ukase  dated  Jan.  18,  1721.  Sec  lji«51aief,  'J he  Peasant))/  in  Russia 
(Moscow,  1S60),  p.  257. 

^  Pylaief,  Old  Moscow,  p.  419. 


THE  SOCIAL  REFORM^  THE  TABLE  OF  RANKS        459 

on  Russia  cost  a  heavy  price,  and  that  price,  up  to  the  year 
1 86 1,  was  paid,  for  the  most  part,  by  the  Russian  peasantry. 


Ill 

Peter  never,  according  to  his  apologists,  had  any  intention 
of  lessening  the  reforming  programme  left  him  by  his 
predecessors,  by  the  omission  of  the  emancipation  of  his 
rural  subjects.  All  he  did.  we  are  assured,  was  to  sub- 
ordinate the  solution  of  this  problem,  to  the  preliminary 
accomplishment  of  another  work — the  emancipation  of  the 
Urban  class.  The  town,  once  raised  out  of  its  misery  and 
degradation,  was  to  free  the  village.  I  cannot  find  any  trace 
of  such  an  idea,  either  in  the  actions  or  the  writings  of  the 
great  Tsar.  He  certainly  took  great  pains  to  create  a 
middle  class,  in  the  young  cities  of  his  Empire,  and  to  make 
that  class  worthy  of  its  natural  vocation.  According  to  his 
usual  habit,  he  made  a  trial  of  every  system  at  once,  English 
Administrative  Autonomy  and  Self- Government,  French 
Trade  Corporations,  Companies  and  Wardenships,  and 
German  Guilds.  His  success  did  not  equal  his  expectations. 
His  reign  marked  a  period  in  the  history  of  the  gradual  de- 
velopment of  the  industrial  and  commercial  centres  of  Modern 
Russia,  but  his  attempted  organisation  of  the  industrial  and 
commercial  classes  had  nothing  to  do  with  these  results.  It 
only  brought  him  disappointment.  The  development  of  the 
Russian  towns  grew  out  of  political  successes,  and  econonn'c 
victories,  out  of  the  conquest  of  ports,  and  the  establishment 
of  new  means  of  communication,  which  gave  a  fresh  impulse 
to  the  national  commerce  and  manufactures.  In  the  Baltic 
Provinces,  Peter  found  a  middle  class  ready  to  his  hand  ; 
his  endeavour  to  evolve  one  elsewhere  proved  a  mere  waste 
of  time.  I  do  not  myself  believe  the  nature  of  the  Russian 
people  to  be  so  averse  to  the  corporate  idea,  as  some  writers 
have  affirmed.  There  are  many  forms  of  corporation,  and 
the  Artel, — that  eminently  Russian,  and  democratic,  method 
of  association,  is,  after  all,  one  of  these, — more  liberal, 
and  in  greater  conformity  with  the  original  fraternal 
principle,  which,  in  the  case  of  most  Western  corporations,  has 
been  vitiated  by  the  dcs[)otic  influence  of  Rome.  I  believe, 
— and  Peter's  example  confirms  me  in  this  belief, — that  it  is 


46o  PETER  THE  GREAT 

not  pos>ible  to  create  social  forces  by  law  and  regulation. 
Peter  issued  many  such,  and  all  in  vain.  And,  as  so  often 
happened  in  his  case,  his  whole  method  was  full  of  incon- 
sistencies. In  1699,  he  sketched  out  a  huge  plan  of 
municipal  autonomy  on  social  lines.  In  1722,  he  finally 
replaced  this  by  an  ordinary  Magistracy  of  the  burcavicratic 
type.  Me  never  took  the  trouble  to  consider  whether  the 
exotic  forms  he  so  hastily  imposed  on  the  industrial  and 
commercial  existence  of  his  country  were  fitted  for  its  needs. 
He  never  perceived  that  they  were  a  garment,  which  had 
already  seen  hard  service  on  the  shoulders  of  his  European 
neighbours,  who  were  about  to  cast  it  aside,  and  that  he  was 
dressing  his  own  people  in  mere  rags.  While  he  claimed  to 
favour  the  development  of  commerce  and  industr}-,  he  did 
not  relinquish  the  fiscal  policy  of  his  predecessors,  who 
regarded  the  urban  population  chiefly  as  a  taxable  element, 
from  which  forced  labour  might  be  obtained.  He  in- 
creased the  burden  thus  injudiciously  imposed,^  and  finally, 
— though,  as  I  have  alreatly  indicated,  he  held  that  his  so- 
called  nobility,  the  dvorianit\  did  not  lose  caste  by  engaging 
in  Middle  Class  occupations, — he  recognised  the  formal 
entrance  of  any  member  of  that  aristocracy  into  the  middle 
class,  as  a  disgraceful  thing, — a  blot  on  his  reputation. 
Voltaire's  enthusiasm  on  this  point  is  difficult  to  understand.^ 

Peter's  social  reforms  were  unconscious,  and  this  is  his 
best  excuse.  All  he  did,  in  town  and  country  alike,  was  to 
brush  carelessly  past,  or  else  to  stumble  gropingly  ujion, 
certain  great  problems,  the  full  comprehension  of  which 
demanded  a  far  more  powerful  and  extended  range  of  vi.sion 
than  he  possessed. 

Yet,  from  one  point  of  \icw,  the  work  he  performed  in 
this  particular  sphere,  though  unconscious  and  indirect,  was 
far-reaching  in  its  consequences.  He  introduced  into  the 
social  organisation  of  his  country, — perhaps  we  should  say, 
he  drove  back  within  its  borders, — an  element  which  may 
be  held  to  have  brought  about  a  more  harmonious  combina- 
tion of  its  every  part.  The  Church,  before  his  time,  was  out- 
side the  general  community.  Church  rights  and  privileges 
rivalled  and  resembled  those  of  the  State  ;  a  huge  Church 

'  Ditiatin,  The  Administratio7i  of  Russian  Towns,  t^.  175. 
-  Sec  the  views  expressed   by  D.imazc  de  IJayni'ind  in  his  Ilisloriial,  Geo- 
graphical, etc..  Picture  of  Russia,  vol.  i.  p.  1 19  (Paris,  1812). 


THE  SOCIAL  REFORM— THE  TABLE  OF  RANKS        461 

property  was  managed  without  any  reference  to  the 
temporal  power ;  the  Church  was  served  by  her  own  army 
of  dependants,  her  jurisdiction  was  not  restricted  to  ecclesi- 
astical affairs ;  she  formed  a  separate  State.  Peter,  as  we 
have  seen,  made  an  end  of  all  this.  During  his  reign,  priests 
and  monks  went  back  to  their  proper  place.  If  he  could  not 
make  them  citizens,  at  all  events  he  made  them  subjects  of 
the  State ;  it  was  a  good  beginning.  ^ 


CHAPTER     V 

PETER'S   ECONOMIC   WORK 

I.  Industry — Guiding  ideas — Their  great  scope  and  relative  consistency — 
Causes  which  partially  imperilled  their  success — A  mortal  error — I'eler 
expects  to  create  commerce  and  industry  by  ukase — The  mercantile  thetiry 
— Protection  —  State  manufactures  —  Peter  manufactures  cambric  —  Pre- 
carious position  of  his  establishments  —  He  ends  by  finding  fruitful 
ground — The  mining  industry. 
II.  Comnicrce — A  commercial  monopoly — Peter's  liberal  tendencies — His  war 
obliges  him  to  put  them  aside— Liberal  in  theory — Practical  continuation 
of  arbitrary  methods — The  Port  of  St.  Petersburg— Canals — Highways — 
The  caravan  trade — The  Persian  and  Indian  niaikets. 

III.  Rural  economy — Peter  as  an  agriculturist  and  forester — Political  and  moral 

obstacle  to  economic  progress. 

IV.  The  finances — The   Budget — Appearance  and    reality — The    necessities  of 

war — A  policy  of  disorganisation  and  robbery — The  revision  of  the 
Cadastral  Survey — Di-ap])ointing  results — More  expedients — A  deficit — 
Return  to  healthier  methods — General  reform  of  taxation — The  land 
tax  replaced  by  a  poll  tax — Partial  adherence  to  former  mistakes — 
Bankruptcy. 


At  the  period  of  Peter's  accession  Russian  commercial 
indiisti)'  hatl  no  existence.  The  Tsar  was  the  only  great 
merchant  in  Russia.  During  the  Du-umvirate  of  Peter  and 
Ivan,  a  hirge  reward  was  offered  to  a  French  sea-captain  for 
introducing  white  paper,  wine,  and  certain  other  merchandise, 
which  would  otherwise  have  been  unobtainable,  into  the 
country.  Just  at  that  moment,  the  earliest  Russian  econo- 
mist, Possoshkof,  was  writing  a  book — his  '  lVi7/' — in  which  he 
openly  affirmed  his  contempt  for  wealth.  Twenty  years 
later  the  very  same  author  drew  up,  on  white  paper,  vim/e  in 
Russia,  a  Treatise  on  Poverty  and  Ric/ics,  in  the  course  of 
which  he  points  out  every  possible  method  of  increasing 
private  fortunes  and  the  wealth  of  the  State,  and  forestalls 

462 


PETER'S  ECONOMIC  WORK  463 

both  Smith  and  Turgot  in  pressing  the  superiority  of  task- 
work over  daily  labour.     This  again  was  Peter's  work. 

It  was  far-reaching  in  its  effects.  In  spite  of  some  incon- 
sistencies, it  deserves  a  place  of  honour  in  the  great  Tsar's 
history,  both  on  account  of  the  magnitude  of  the  effort,  the 
multiplicity  and  ingeniousness  of  the  means  employed,  and 
the  logical  sequence  of  the  ideas  which  guided  it.  Peter 
desired,  and  attempted  to  attain,  the  increase  of  private 
happiness,  and  of  State  resources ;  to  simultaneously  create 
fresh  sources  of  taxation  and  production  ;  to  replace  foreign 
importations  by  the  produce  of  the  national  industry ;  to 
stimulate  the  activity  and  originating  power  of  his  subjects  ; 
to  remove  all  idle  persons,  monks,  nuns,  and  beggars  into 
the  ranks  of  the  industrious  classes  ;  to  check  administrative 
indifference,  and  even  hostility,  to  the  productive  forces  of 
the  country.  He  endeavoured  to  supply  what  was  lacking 
in  public  justice,  to  develop  public  credit,  and  atone  for 
the  absence  of  public  security,  for  the  non-existence  of  a 
third  estate  ; — to  bring  Russia,  in  fact,  into  touch  with  con- 
temporary economic  existence. 

The  partial  failure  of  this  enterprise  was  brought  about 
by  an  unlucky  coincidence,  and  a  mortal  error.  The  coin- 
cidence was  the  war,  with  its  natural  consequences  and  neces- 
sities. The  war  it  was  which  drove  Peter,  the  resolute 
adversary  of  all  monopolies,  to  create  fresh  ones,  and  thus 
pull  down  with  one  hand  what  he  had  built  up  with  the 
other.  The  fundamental  error  was  his  belief  that,  by  dint 
of  ukases  and  physical  force,  he  could  create  a  commercial 
and  industrial  life,  endow  it  with  the  necessary  organs,  give 
it  muscles  and  blood,  and  rule  its  movements,  driving  it  to 
the  right  and  left,  just  as  he  embodied  regiments  and 
drilled  them.  His  commercial  and  industrial  companies, 
founded  in  1699,  were  his  first  attempt  in  this  direction. 
The  Dutch  began  by  being  alarmed,  but  they  soon  ended 
by  laughing  them  to  scorn. 

Money  was  indispensable  to  carry  on  the  war.  The 
standing  armies  of  the  West  laid  the  foundation  of  the  mer- 
cantile doctrine,  and  Peter  soon  became  a  devoted  follower 
of  Colbert.  The  national  tradition  was  with  him  in  this 
respect.  In  the  time  of  Alexis  Mihaiiovitch,  and  probably 
earlier,  all  entrance  duties  were  paid  into  the  Muscovite 
Custom-house  in  Hungarian  ducats  or  Dutch  thalers,    Peter 


464  PETER  THE  GREAT 

enforced  and  aggravated  this  system,  wliich  is  still  in  exist- 
ence at  the  present  day.  In  spite  of  all  Bodin's  or  Child's 
advice  to  the  contrary,  he  forbade  all  exportation  of  the 
precious  metal.  Me  had  never  read  the  works  of  Klock, 
Sciiroder,  or  Decker  ;  he  went  beyond  their  view,  and  actu- 
ally forbade  his  subjects  to  accept  payment  for  their  mer- 
chandise in  the  national  currency.^  He  believed  in  the 
balance  of  trade,  and  contrived  to  make  it  incline  to  his 
own  side,  a  privilege  which  his  Empire  preserved  in  common 
with  Spain,  until  a  recent  date.  According  to  Marpcrgcr, 
Russia,  towards  the  year  1723,  gained  several  tons  of  gold 
yearly  on  her  foreign  exchange.^  Peter  also  believed  in  pro- 
tection. He  ruled  a  country,  the  external  commerce  of 
which  is  almost  entirely  confined  to  the  production  of  raw 
material ;  he  forbade  the  exportation  of  certain  produce  of 
this  nature,  as,  for  instance,  of  wool,  and  hampered  all  others 
by  an  almost  prohibitive  export  tariff.  He  was  not  yet  in  a 
position  to  dress  his  whole  army  in  native-made  cloth,  but 
he  would  wear  nothing  else  him.^elf,  and  made  its  use  for  all 
liveries  compulsory.^  A  Frenchman,  named  INlamoron,  es- 
tablished a  stocking  factory  at  Moscow,  and  Peter  forbade 
his  Moscovian  subjects  to  buy  stockings  elsewhere.  When 
certain  manufacturers  under  his  protection  seemed  little 
disposed  to  turn  the  felt  they  manufactured  into  hats,  their 
courage  was  stimulated  by  an  official  ukase  which  forbade 
them  to  sell  their  merchandise  at  all,  unless  they  put  a  certain 
number  of  hats  on  the  market.  This  system  of  entreaty,  of 
persuasive  and  coercive  arguments,  and  of  moral  and  pecu- 
niary assistance,  ended  by  producing  its  effect.  P\actories 
sprang  up  in  all  directions,  some  of  them  subsidised  by  the 
Sovereign  ;  others  directly  undertaken  by  him,  and  others 
af^ain  worked  by  independent  persons.  The  Empress  was 
interested  in  a  tulle  factory,  and  starch  works,  at  Ekatierinhof 
Peter's  efforts  were  limited,  at  first,  to  the  production  of 
supplies  for  his  navy  ;  sailcloth,  saltpetre  and  sulphur,  leather 
and  arms,  but  in  time,  and  somewhat  against  the  grain,  he 
enlarged  his  sphere  of  operations.  He  manufactured  cambric 
at  St'  Petersburg,  made  paper  at  Douderof,  and  had  cloth 
mills  all  over  the  country. 

^  Collected  Laws,  2793,  2SS9,  3441.     Comp.  Sticda,  in  the  Russische  Revue, 
vol.  iv.  p.  206. 

8  Moscovilischer  Kaufmann  (1723),  p.  218,         ^  Solovief,  vol.  xvi.  p.  203. 


PETER'S  ECONOMIC  WORK  465 

But  none  of  these  establishments,  unfortunately,  made 
money.  In  vain  did  the  Tsar  sell  his  cambric  at  a  loss, 
giving  material  which  had  cost  him  fourteen  kopecks  for  five. 
As  usual,  he  grew  stubborn,  went  further  and  further,  and 
even  endeavoured  to  introduce  artistic  production  into  the 
manufactures  of  his  country.  Russia  began  to  make  tapestry 
before  she  knew  anything  about  cotton-spinning.  And  he 
was  not  satisfied  with  urging  her  on,  he  dealt  blows.  In 
1718,  a  ukase  forbade  the  use  of  tallow,  in  dressing  leather; 
tar  was  to  be  employed,  on  pain  of  confiscation  and  the 
galleys !  But,  in  the  course  of  this  wild  struggle,  he  came 
on  a  most  promising  field,  teeming  with  riches,  easily  and 
promptly  realised ;  and  forthwith  his  eagerness,  his  pas- 
sionate keenness,  and  creative  activity,  worked  wonders.  In 
the  reign  of  Alexis,  a  Dutchman  and  a  Dane  had  attempted 
mining  operations  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Moscow,  and 
had  extracted  several  tons  of  mineral.^  The  work,  when 
Peter  put  his  hand  to  it,  took  on  vast  proportions.  This 
new  departure  was,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  that  inspired, 
guided,  and  hurried  forward  by  the  necessities  of  war. 
When  the  ironworks  of  Vierhotour  and  Tobolsk  were  estab- 
lished by  ukase,  in  1697,  Peter  was  entirely  prompted  by  his 
military  needs  ; — he  wanted  guns  and  heavy  artillery.  But 
once  started,  he  went  steadily  forward,  and  the  prodigious 
development  of  Russian  mining  industry,  in  the  present  day, 
is  the  result. 

The  Sovereign  began  by  seeking  iron,  and  working  it. 
But  soon,  as  might  have  been  expected,  the  gold  fever  was 
upon  him.  He  grew  more  and  more  eager,  collecting  every 
kind  of  information,  searching  in  all  directions.  The  various 
expeditions  he  organised, — that  sent  towards  Persia  in  17 17, 
under  the  command  of  Bekovitch-Tcherkaski,  and  that 
despatched  to  Siberia  in  17 19,  under  the  leadership  of 
Liharef,  were  unsuccessful.  Up  till  1722,  only  one  silver 
mine  was  brought  into  actual  work;  but  in  the  course 
of  these  expeditions  copper  was  found,  and  more  iron, — and 
in  1722,  coal  was  discovered.  Thirty-six  foundries  were 
opened  in  the  Government  of  Kasan,  and  thirty-nine  in  that 
of  Moscow. 

Private  enterprise,  apart  from  that  of  Demidof,  was  slow 

*  Storch,    Ilistorisch-Slatistische    GemdlJe    des    Kussischen    Ketches    (Riga, 
1797),  vol.  ii.  p.  485. 


466  PETER  THE  GREAT 

to  appear.  A  ukase  published  in  1719  gives  us  an  insight 
into  this  question.  By  it  all  men  are  declared  free  to  seek, 
and  work,  any  kind  of  metal,  in  any  ground.  The  only 
right  of  the  proprietors  of  metalliferous  soil  is  that  of 
priority  ;  if  they  fail  to  take  advantage  of  it,  so  much  the 
worse  for  them.  If  they  venture  to  conceal  the  presence  of 
workable  seams,  or  to  prevent  their  being  worked  by  others, 
death  is  to  be  their  punishment.^  In  1723,  the  legislator 
made  another  step.  He  resolved  to  break,  finally,  with  the 
system  of  the  industrial  monopoly  of  the  Crown.  He  pub- 
lished a  regulation  for  the  embodiment  of  a  College  of 
Manufactures,  and  added  a  manifesto,  whereby  private  in- 
dividuals were  invited  to  replace  the  State  in  the  working 
of  all  his  industrial  establishments  of  every  kind,  and  offered 
the  most  advantageous  terms.  The  sum-total  of  these 
repeated  efforts  bore  fruit  at  last.  The  creative  movement 
increased  and  broadened,  and  the  national  industry  became 
an  accomplished  fact. 

II 

The  history  of  the  National  Commerce  closely  resembles 
that  of  Peter's  industrial  undertakings.  The  Tsar,  when  he 
ascended  the  Throne,  was  greatly  inclined  to  do  away  with 
those  Crown  rights  which  made  him  the  foremost,  and, 
indeed,  the  only  considerable  merchant,  in  the  country.  But 
the  necessities  of  the  war  forced  his  hand.  Want  of  money 
obliged  him  to  continue  his  trading  operations,  and,  as  he 
/  never  did  anything  by  halves,  he  increased  these  to  such  an  ex- 
tent as  to  monopolise  and  absorb  all  markets,  both  internal  and 
external.  He  created  new  branches  of  traffic,  but  every  one  of 
these  was  a  monopoly.  He  bought  wholesale,  and  sold  retail, 
in  every  department,  even  going  so  far  as  to  sell  Hungarian 
wine  in  small  quantities,  at  Moscow.^  At  a  certain  period, 
overwhelmed,  as  he  was,  by  the  cares  of  government, 
and  worried  by  the  irregularity  of  the  income  they  brought 
in,  he  began  to  farm  out  his  rights.  Menshikof  took  over 
the  Archangel  Fisheries,  and  the  trade  in  castor  oil  and 
otter  skins.  But,  when  the  hope  of  an  early  peace  diminished 
the  Sovereign's  financial  anxieties,  he  came  back  to  his  own 
natural  and  liberal  tendencies.  The  Corn  Trade  was  de- 
*  Collected  I. aivs,  3464.  -'  Golikof,  vol.  vi.  p.  326. 


PETER'S  ECONOMIC  WORK  467 

clared  free  in  17 17,  and,  in  17 19,  all  monopolies  were  done 
away  with.  Meanwhile,  the  'College  of  Commerce,' which 
had  been  founded  in  171 5,  was  beginning  to  do  good  work. 
The  education  of  the  commercial  class  wa's  made  the  object 
of  its  special  care,  and  dozens  of  young  men  belonging  to  the 
rich  merchant  families  of  Moscow — a  rapidly  increasing  class 
— were  sent  into  Holland  and  Italy.  Diplomatically  speak- 
ing, efforts  were  made,  in  all  directions,  to  extend  conniiercial 
relations  w^ith  other  nations.  The  war  had  led  Peter  into 
some  regrettable  errors  in  this  respect, — such  as  the  s;;le,  in 
17 13,  of  certain  rights  and  privileges  to  the  town  of  Lubeck, 
for  a  sum  of  between  30,000  and  40,000  crowns,  and  similar 
arrangements  with  Dantzic  and  Hamburg.  After  the  year 
1717,  Peter  showed  an  evident  intention  to  put  an  end 
to  this  condition  of  things,  and  no  further  reference  to  such 
proceedings  appears,  either  in  his  negotiations  with  France, 
or  in  the  instructions  sent  to  the  Consuls,  simultaneously 
appointed,  at  Toulon,  Lisbon,  and  London. 

Yet  he  could  not  resist  the  temptation  of  trying  to  direct 
this  budding  intercourse  after  a  somewhat  arbitrary  fashion. 
This  fact  is  evidenced  in  the  history  of  the  Port  of  St.  Peters- 
burg, and  of  the  pitched  battle  between  the  Tsar  and  the 
merchants,  native  or  foreign,  who  persisted  in  preferring  the 
Port  of  Archangel.  When  all  pacific  means  of  persuasion  were 
exhausted, — when  Peter  realised  that  nothing  would  attract 
the  merchants  to  St.  Petersburg, — neither  the  establishment  of 
a  huge  Gostmnyl  dvor  (bazaar),  nor  of  a  special  Magistracy 
largely  composed  of  foreigners,  nor  the  pains  he  himself  had 
taken  to  ensure  a  good  and  cheap  supply  of  their  favourite 
article  of  commerce — hemp — in  his  new  Capital, — he  boldly 
appealed  to  his  ancestral  traditions.  Though  he  did  nut 
forcibly  transfer  the  citizens  of  Archangel  to  St.  Petersburg,  as 
his  predecessor,  Vassili,  had  removed  the  Novgorod  burghers 
to  Moscow,  he  decreed  that  the  recalcitrant  merchants  must, 
in  future,  buy  and  sell  their  hemp  at  St.  Petersburg,  and  no- 
where else.^ 

The  result  of  this  measure  was  easy  to  foresee.  The  new 
Capital,  as  a  commercial  mart,  was  still  far  from  desirable. 
The  system  of  canals,  by  which  the  Volga  and  the  Neva 
were  to  be  joined  to  the  Lake  of  Ladoga,  had,  as  yet,  no 

*  Tchoulkof,  Historical  Description  of  Russian  Trade,  vol.  vi.  p.  488 ; 
Storch,  vol.  V.  p.  19,  etc. 


468  PETER  THE  GREAT 

existence  except  on  paper.  The  ^i^reat  Enc;lish  enf][ineer. 
Perry,  to  whom  the  work  had  been  confided,  disgusted  by 
the  ill-treatment  lie  had  received,  had  retired  from  the  work 
while  it  was  in  its  earliest  stage.  Peter  planned  a  second 
canal,  by  which  the  dangerous  Lake  was  to  be  avoided,  and 
the  Neva  directly  united  to  the  mighty  affluent  of  the 
Caspian.  But  this  canal  was  not  completed  till  1732.  A 
third  system,  based  on  the  utilisation  of  various  intermediate 
streams,  served  no  purpose,  but  that  of  enriching  a  miller 
named  Serdioukof,  who  invented  it,  and  who  took  advantage 
of  the  concession,  all  too  iiastily  granted  bim,  to  dot  the 
banks  of  the  Tsna  and  the  Shlina  with  mills  and  taverns, 
which  brought  no  advantage  whatsoever  to  the  Port  of  St. 
Petersburg.  Thus,  hemp  and  furs,  and  every  other  mer- 
chandise,— for  after  17 17  two-thirds  of  all  produce  had  to 
be  sent  thither — were  brought  up  to  the  Capital  with  the 
greatest  difficulty,  and  at  terrible  expense.  And  there,  as 
no  purchasers  were  to  be  found,  they  were  heaped  up, 
depreciated  by  over-keeping,  and  ended — this  was  especially 
the  case  with  the  hemp — by  actually  rotting. 

Put  Peter  cared  not.  Somehow  or  other,  he  was  resolved, 
St.  Petersburg  was  to  become  a  commercial  port.  Only 
sixteen  foreign  vessels  touched  there  in  17 14.  but  the  next 
year  there  were  fifty-three  ;  in  1722  there  were  119,  and  in 
1724  the  number  rose  to  180.  Peter  laid  tlie  foundation  of 
that  sj'stem  of  river  communication,  which  all  his  successors, 
down  to  Catherine's  time,  laboured  to  complete,  connecting 
the  basin  of  the  Volga  with  those  of  the  Neva  and  Dvina, 
opening  the  way  from  the  Caspian  to  the  Baltic  and  White 
Sea,  and  uniting  seventy-six  lakes,  and  106  streams,  by 
means  of  302  versts  of  artificial  waterwa\'.  This  result  was 
not  achieved  without  enormous  waste  of  mone\',  of  labour, 
and  even  of  human  life.  Ikit  the  secret  of  Russian  strength 
and  success  has  always  largely  consisted  in  the  will  and  the 
power  not  to  count  the  cost  of  the  object  to  be  attained. 
Here  again  the  patient  Moujiks,  who  lie  buried  in  their 
thousands  in  the  P^innish  marshes,  paid  the  price  unmur- 
muringly  ! 

Peter  attached  b}-  no  means  the  same  importance  to  land 
communications,  and  did  not,  indeed,  make  any  endeavour  to 
develop  them.  He  made  no  roads,  and  even  in  the  present 
day,  this  is  one  of  Russia's  weak  points.     The  very  inadc- 


PETER'S  ECONOMIC  WORK  469 

quate  hi'f^hways  which  do  exist,  have  been  entirely  con- 
structed by  the  Engineering  Corps  called  into  existence  so 
lately  as  1809.  Yet,  the  great  man  did  not  overlook  the  value 
of  caravan  trade,  as  practised  by  his  ancestors.  He  engaged 
in  it  himself,  bought  the  harvests  of  Tokay,  on  the  spot,  and 
carried  his  purchases  to  Moscow  on  hundreds  of  carts,  which 
returned  into  Hungary  laden  with  Siberian  produce.^ — And, 
though  his  best  thoughts  and  efforts  were  turned  towards  the 
Baltic,  and  western  commerce,  he  did  not,  as  I  have  already 
shown,  lose  sight  of  his  South-Eastern  frontier,  and  of  the 
commercial  interests  which  beckoned  him  in  that  direction. 
Probabl}',  if  he  had  reached  Bokhara,  he  would  have  founded 
an  Indian  trade.  Occasional  caravans  already  came  to 
Orenburg  and  Astrakhan,  bringing  not  only  silken  and 
cotton  stuffs,  made  in  Bokhara,  but  Indian  merchandise, 
precious  stones,  gold,  and  silver.  At  all  events,  he  took 
possession  of  the  Irtish,  —  thereby  moving  the  Siberian 
frontier  back,  and  protecting  it  against  the  Kalmuks  and  the 
Kirghiz, — and  of  the  Kolyvan  Mountains,  the  treasures  of 
which,  discovered  at  a  later  period,  confirmed  the  old  Greek 
story  of  gold  mines  guarded  by  gnomes.  If  he  had  main- 
tained bis  hold  on  Azof,  he  might,  too,  have  sought,  and 
succeeded  in  obtaining,  the  re-establishment  of  the  ancient 
commercial  route,  followed  by  the  Venetians  and  the 
Genoese.  Driven  back  on  the  Caspian,  he  attempted,  we  may 
believe,  to  turn  trade  by  Astrakhan,  towards  St.  Petersburg. 
This  idea  would  seem  to  have  dictated  his  great  expedi- 
tion in  1722,  and  the  project  for  a  great  commercial  depot,  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Kour,  on  which  5000  men  of  various  tribes 
were  actually  working,  when  he  died.  There  was,  it  may  be 
hinted,  some  fancy,  and  even  a  touch  of  madness,  in  all  this  : 
there  was  no  attempt,  certainly,  at  any  reasonable  calcu- 
lation of  possibilities,  distances,  and  cost  of  transport.  But 
in  spite  of  the  exaggerated  boldness  of  his  plans,  and  of  the 
utter  oblivion  into  which  the  indifference  of  his  earlier  suc- 
cessors soon  cast  them,  one  result  was  gained.  The  Persian 
and  Indian  markets,  to  which  a  kind  of  road  was  opened, 
were  thus  included  in  the  inheritance,  which,  even  in  our 
days,  Russia  is  yet  receiving  and  reckoning  up,  and  the  huge 
benefits  of  which  she  continues  to  enjoy. 

^  Storcti,  vol.  V.  p.  37  ;  Goliktif,  vol.  vi.  p.  326. 


470  PETER  THE  GREAT 


III 


A  man  so  catholic  in  his  tastes  as  Peter  could  hardly 
have  failed  to  be  an  agriculturist.  And  he  was  an  eager 
one.  His  reign  marks  an  era  in  the  history  of  Russian 
rural  economy.  He  did  not,  like  the  great  Frederick,  in 
later  years,  content  himself  with  teaching  his  peasants  to 
plant  potatoes.  Near  Moscow,  he  taught  them,  by  his  own 
pergonal  example,  how  to  cut  their  corn,  and  near  St.  Peters- 
burg, he  showed  them  how  to  make  their  laf^ti  (bark  shoes). 
He  treated  them  as  a  schoolmaster  treats  his  scholars,  and 
forbade  them  to  wear  nailed  soles,  because  they  spoilt  the 
floors.  He  fixed  the  width  of  the  coarse  cloth  they  made 
in  their  cottages.  He  was  struck  by  the  beauty  of  a  French 
Cure's  garden,  and  as  soon  as  he  returned  to  Russia,  he  fell 
out  with  iiis  own  popes,  because  they  liad  nothing  of  the 
kind.  He  interested  himself  in  the  matter  of  seed-corn,  in 
the  care  of  domestic  animals,  the  manuring  of  fields,  the  use 
of  agricultural  instruments,  and  the  improvement  of  methods 
of  cultivation.  He  endeavoured  to  introduce  vines  into  the 
country  of  the  Don  Cossacks,  and  to  develop  that  branch 
of  culture  near  Dcrbent,  where  he  planted  Persian  and 
Hungarian  vines.  In  171 2,  he  established  the  first  Russian 
breeding  studs,  and  in  1706,  he  began  to  breed  sheep  in  the 
Governments  of  Harkof,  Poltava,  and  lekatierinoslav,  which 
now  swarm  with  that  useful  quadruped.^  He  was  the  first 
forester  in  his  own  country,  the  first  to  protect  the  wood- 
lands against  the  inveterately  destructive  habits  of  his 
subjects.  It  must  be  confessed  that  no  Minister  of 
Agriculture,  even  in  Russia,  would  venture,  in  these  days, 
on  his  methods.  All  along  the  Neva  and  the  Gulf  of 
Finland,  at  every  five  versts,  a  gallows  was  set  up, 
on  which  depredators  were  to  be  hanged.  Within  the 
boundaries  of  St.  Petersburg,  on  the  space  now  occupied 
by  the  Custom-house,  there  was  a  pine  wood.  As  the 
people  continued  to  cut  and  steal  the  wood,  Peter  ordered 
a  sudden  descent  by  the  police,  had  every  tenth  prisoner 
hanged,  and  knouted  the  rest.^ 

Generally  speaking,  the  Reformer's  good  intentions,  with 
regard   to  economic   progress,  met  with  a  double  obstacle, 

'   Russian  State  Tapers  (1S73),  p.  22S8. 

-  SDbofs  Paper  in  \.\Mi  Journal  of  Agriculture.  187?,. 


PETER'S  ECONOMIC  WORK  471 

moral  and  political.  On  the  13th  of  March  17 16,  a  Ukase 
to  the  Senate  pronounced  the  penalty  of  death  on  those 
Russian  merchants  who  should  continue  to  carry  on  a 
practice  of  which  their  English  customers  had  long  com- 
plained,— that  of  hiding  damaged  merchandise  inside  their 
bales  of  hemp,  or  even  of  introducing  stones  to  increase  the 
weight.^  Notwithstanding  this  effort,  the  connncrcial  and 
industrial  morality  of  the  country  remained  a  problem, 
to  be  solved  in  future  reigns.  When  Peter  died,  the 
elements  of  industrial  and  commercial  activity,  which  he 
had  created  and  called  out  of  the  void,  were  still  in  a  condi- 
tion of  savagery.  In  1722,  Bestoujef  announces  the  arrival, 
in  the  city  of  Stockholm,  of  certain  Russian  merchants  from 
Abo  and  Revel.  They  had  brought  over  a  small  quantity 
of  coarse  cloth,  wooden  spoons,  and  nuts,  which  they  sold 
from  their  sledges  in  the  streets ;  they  cooked  their  caslia 
in  the  open  air,  refused  to  obey  the  police,  got  drunk, 
quarrelled  and  fought,  and  the  disgusting  filthiness  of  their 
habits  made  them  an  altogether  shameful  spectacle.^ 

The  political  difficulty  was  connected  with  Finance.  The 
Tsar's  financial  policy  was  the  dark  spot  on  his  reign.  It 
was  the  part  of  Peter's  work,  most  directly  inspired  and 
compiViidcd  by  the  necessities  of  his  war,  and  bears  that 
mark.  It  was  far  from  being  a  policy  of  reform,  and  was, 
almost  always,  thoroughly  bad.  I  can  only  give  a  hasty 
summary  of  its  more  salient  features. 

IV 

The  pecuniary  resources  which  Peter  found  at  his  dis- 
posal, when  he  succeeded  to  the  Russian  throne,  cannot 
be  directly  compared  with  those  of  any  other  luiropean 
State.  Their  sum  did  not,  according  to  Golikof,  exceed 
1.750,000  roubles.^  The  mere  internal  existence  of  the 
State,  independently  of  all  external  matters,  would,  at  first 
sight,  appear  impossible,  on  such  slender  means,  but  the  very 
exceptional  conditions  which  then  specially  favoured  the 
State  exchequer,  must  be  taken  into  account.  In  the  first 
place,  except  for  the  army,  there  were  hardly  any  State 
expenses  whatsoever.     The  servants  of  the  State   were  all 

^  Sbornik,  vol.  xi.  p.  308. 

^  Solovief,  vol.  xvii.  p.  164.  •  Vol.  xiii.  p.  706. 

31 


472  PETER  THE  GREAT 

uiip.iifl.  Tlicy  cither  gave  their  services  in  exclianj^c  for 
privilcL^cs  c^raiited,  or  they  were  indirectly  rewarded  by 
the  system  known  as  the  konnlaiie.  There  were  no  roads, 
and  consequently  no  expenses  for  keeping  tiietn  up.  And 
so  f^rtii.  I  subjoin  the  Jkidget  of  State  Expenses  for  the 
year  1710,  which  is  instructive — 

Expenses  of  the  Army      .         .         .  1,252,525  roubles 

.,          „          Artillery          .         .  221.799 

Elect       .         .         .  444,288 

„           „           Garrisons         .         .  977,^96  „ 

Recruiting  Expenses         .         .         .  30,000  „ 

Purchase  of  Arms      ....  84,104  „ 

Diplomatic  Service  ....  148,031  ,, 
Other     Expenses,    including     Chief 

Gunners'  pay      ....  675,775  ,} 

In  1679,  before  Peter's  time,  a  great  and  salutary  reform 
was  introduced  into  this  rudimentary  organisation,  by  the 
centralisation  of  all  revenue  in  the  Great  Treasury  Depart- 
ment {Prikaz  BalsJioi  Kazny')  which  was  replaced  in  1699  by 
the  '  Hotel  de  Ville.'  When  Peter  came,  he  undid  what  had 
already  been  done.  He  was  in  too  great  a  hurry  to  attempt 
to  carry  out  any  programme,  the  benefits  of  which  were  not 
likely  to  accrue  to  him  for  a  considerable  time.  He  wanted 
money  quickly,  and  a  great  deal  of  it,  and  he  behaved  like 
many  young  men  who  find  themselves  in  a  difficulty.  In- 
stead of  carrying  on  the  process  of  centralisation,  and 
gradually  suppressing  those  special  and  local  departments, 
which  sucked  up  and  swallowed  the  National  wealth,  he 
invented  new  ones,  such  as  his  Financial  War  Departments^ 
which  received  the  special  war  taxatitin.  Instead  of  en- 
deavouring to  increase  the  already  existing  sources  of 
revenue,  which  were  suited  to  the  productive  forces  of  the 
country,  he  began  a  policy  of  financial  brigandage,  taxing 
anything  and  everything  which  struck  him  as  being  taxable, 
even  to  his  subjects'  beards.  He  seized  oakcti  coffins  in  the 
joiners'  shops,  had  them  taken  to  the  monasteries,  and  there 
sold,  four  times  as  dear,  for  the  benefit  of  the  Treasury ! 
In  1700,  he  took  possession  of  the  taxes  hitherto  paid  by 
the    merchants,   to    the    private  proprietors  of   the  various 

'  Blocli,  The  Finances  of  Russm  (Warsaw,  1SS4),  vol.  i.  p.  20. 


PETERS  ECONOMIC  WORK  473 

market-places.  In  1704,  he  laid  his  hands  upon  the  taverns; 
in  1705,  he  seized  the  salt  and  tobacco  monopoh"es  ;  in  1707, 
he  extended  this  system  to  a  whole  series  of  articles  of 
commerce,  including  the  principal  exports  of  the  country. 
Meanwhile,  advised  by  Kotoshihin,  he  had  attempted  to  re- 
coin  the  National  Currency  ;  but  this  only  resulted  in  greater 
poverty,  for  the  value  of  the  rouble  diminished  one-half^ 

A  more  judicious  attempt  was  that  to  work  the  State 
farms  {obrotcJiny'ie  stati)  through  a  special  department  (the 
Ijora  CJiancery),  opened,  in  1704,  in  Alenshikof's  house,  met 
with  better  success,  and  the  revenue  from  this  source  rose 
from  299,000  to  569,000  roubles, — but  as  expenses  had  cor- 
respondingly increased,  the  Treasury  remained  in  as  bad  a 
case  as  ever.  From  the  outset,  there  was  a  struggle  between 
ihe  'Hotel  de  Ville'  and  the  new  departments,  which  resulted 
in  constant  waste  and  confusion.  The  great  financial  and 
administrative  reform  of  1708  only  added  a  fresh  element 
of  disturbance  and  disorder.  All  the  departments  claimed 
the  various  revenues.  In  171 1,  there  was  a  deficit  in  the 
budget  of  the  Moscow  Government.  The  revenue  of  the 
Artillery  Prikaz  had  been  assigned  to  it,  and  this  Prikaz 
had  no  revenue  of  its  own  ;  it  was  expected  to  subsist  on 
subsidies  given  to  it  by  other  departments!  The  disputes, 
mutual  recriminations,  and  general  confusion,  went  from  bad 
to  worse. 

In  1 7 10,  Peter,  who  was  still  at  war,  and  sorely  pressed 
for  money,  was  tempted  by  a  plan  to  revise  the  Cadastral 
Survey  or  list  of  inhabited  houses  and  cultivated  fields,^ 
the  basis  on  which  the  principal  traditional,  and  really 
National,  tax  was  levied.  This  operation  gave  most  un- 
satisfactory results,  it  was  found  that  since  the  last  census, 
in  1678,  taxable  property  had  diminished  by  one-fifth. 
In  the  North,  the  loss  amounted  to  40  per  cent.  This  was 
the  result  of  the  army  recruiting,  and  of  the  flight  of  those 
subject  to  military  service.  Peter  sought  expedients  to 
remedy  this  difficulty,  and  pitched  on  one  which  probably 
suited  tlie  national  spirit,  for,  even  at  the  present  du)-,  it  is 
still  in  force,  with  regard  to  certain  classes  of  the  population. 
The  actual   population  was  condemned   to   pa)-  the  share  of 

'  Collected  Laws,  1799,  1977,  2014,  2015,  2132.  Comp.  Storch,  vol.  v.  p. 
131  ;  Perry,  Present  State  of  A'ussia,  p.  249  ;  Ouslrialof,  vol.  iv.  pt.  2,  p.  641  ; 
Sbornik,  vol.  xxxix.  v.  ^61  :  Milioukof,  u.  204. 


474  PETER  THE  GREAT 

the  absentees,  and  the  tf)lal  revenue  attained  in  1678  was 
alwaxs  to  be  kept  up.  But  this  measure  was  clearly  not 
calculated  to  check  the  current  of  emigration,  and  the  situation 
grew  more  and  moreseriou?:.  From  1704  to  1709, —  though  a 
deficit  on  the  lUidgct  frequently  appeared, — the  excess  was 
ahva)-s  covered  b)- what  remained  over  from  preceding  years. 


Receipts. 

Expenses. 

I70I. 

2,S6o,OGO  roubles. 

2,250,000  roubles. 

1702. 

3,150,000 

2,470,000 

1703. 

2,730,000 

3,340,000 

1704. 

2,490,000 

3,240,000 

1705. 

2,640,000 

3,340,000 

1706. 

2,520,000 

2,7 1 0,000 

1707. 

2,410,000 

2,450,000 

1708. 

2,020,000 

2,220,000 

1709. 

2,760,000 

2,700,000 

1 

But  in  1 7 10  an  absolute  deficit  appeared,  and  naturally 
increased  from  year  to  year.  All  attempts  at  borrowing 
from  abroad  ended  in  failure.  As  the  finances  at  disposal 
barely  sufficed  for  the  necessities  of  the  war,  they  were 
entirely  devoted  to  that  purpose,  and  the  other  branches  of 
the  public  service  were  left  to  struggle  on  as  best  they 
could.  At  last  the  very  sinews  of  war  began  to  fail,  and 
then,  and  not  till  then,  Peter's  soul  fell  into  distress,  and  he 
began  to  betray  an  inclination  to  more  rational  principles, 
and  a  wiser  practice.  Soon  afterwards,  his  stay  in  France 
brought  him  into  more  direct  contact  with  the  economic 
doctrines  then  beginning  to  govern  the  Western  world.  lie 
finally  jnit  away  his  methods  of  violence  and  robbery,  and 
turned  his  mind  to  increasing  the  resources  of  his  country, 
and  thus  adding  to  its  ta.xable  capacity,  by  the  organisation 
of  his  *  College  of  Commerce,'  while  he  endeavoured  to 
improve  its  fiscal  management,  by  a  general  reform  of 
taxation,  carried  out  between  171 8  and   1722. 

This  reform  has  not  met  with  universal  admiration. 
Certain  of  its  qualities, — the  substitution  of  a  Poll  Tax 
{podoHsJuiy'i)y  whereby  each  subject  was  taxed,  instead  of 
each  inhabited  house  {podvor/iyi),  or  tilled  field  {posoc/iiiyi) 
gave  the   Russian  fiscal  system  an  artificial,  and  a  certain 

'   Milioukof,  p.  235. 


PETER'S  ECONOMIC  WORK  475 

anti  national  cliaractcr,  which  it  still  bears.  Contemporary 
opinion,  as  in  the  case  of  Possoshkof,  rose  in  indit^iiation. 
'  How  can  the  soul,  an  intangible  and  inestimable  value,  be 
taxed  ? '  In  later  days,  Count  Uimitri  Tolstoi,  the  eloquent 
historian  of  Russian  financial  institutions,  has  forcibly  de- 
scribed the  pernicious  influence  of  the  innovation  on  the 
economic  development  of  his  country.  Count  Cancrin,  who 
must  be  acknowledged  one  of  the  best  financial  ministers 
possessed  by  Russia,  in  the  course  of  two  centuries,  is 
almost  the  only  native  statesman  who  has  attempted  to 
support  it.  The  immediate  and  palpable  results  of  the 
reform  speak  in  its  favour.  The  only  direct  tax  levied  by 
the  Treasury,  doubled  the  revenue,  which  rose  at  a  bound 
from  1,800,000  to  4,600,000  roubles,  and  the  Budgets  of  the 
last  years  of  Peter's  reigti  show  distinct  progress,  so  far,  at  all 
events,  as  receipts  are  concerned.  That  of  1725  amounted, 
according  to  Golikof,  to  9,776,554  roubles.  At  the  same 
time  the  new  spirit  in  which  the  finances  were  administered! 
began  to  bear  fruit.  The  list  of  expenditure  shows  47,371 
roubles  assigned  to  schools,  and  35,417  to  the  support  of 
hospitals  and  refuges.  But  the  progress,  after  all,  was  very 
trifling,  and  the  improvement  far  more  apparent  than  real. 

As  regards  both  receipts  and  expenses,  these  written 
Budgets  continued  most  deceptive  in  their  nature.  The 
State  really  received  and  paid  out  far  more  than  was  shown 
in  them.  The  revenue  was  increased  by  all  sorts  of  devices, 
by  contributions  in  kind,  and  even  in  money.  The  country 
furnished  all  food  and  forage  for  troops  on  active  service. 
Every  peasant  gave  half  tons  of  rye  and  oats  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Civil  Service,  and  many  pensions  assigned  by  the 
Tsar  were  actually  paid  by  private  individuals.  Thus  that 
of  Princess  Anastasia  Galitzin  was  exacted  from  Alexis 
Miloslavski,  who,  in  return,  was  freed  from  military  service.^ 
In  the  same  manner,  when  the  clerks  {poddzatchy'ie)  of  the 
Secret  Office  of  the  Chancery  of  the  Senate  complained,  in 
1713,  of  being  insufficiently  paid,  their  income  was  increased 
by  a  sum  duly  assignetl  them  on  '  the  revenues  of  all  foreign 
business,  and  all  the  business  of  Strogonof,  except  merchan- 
dise coming  from  Archangel."^ 

'  A  Mcinorandiini  from  Caini)rc<l<)n,  writlcn  at  St.  Petersburi^  in  1724, 
Contains  Koine  curious  details  on  this  subject  (French  I'oreign  Onicc  I'ai/ers, 
vol.  x\.  !>.  75,  Russia).  -  Collected  Laws^  26S3. 


476  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Thus  past  mistakes  wore  still  adhered  to,  and  this  adher- 
ence, coupled  with  the  incomplete  and  bun^lin^  ap[)lication 
of  the  newer  niethoils,  prevented  a  reall)'  successful  assimila- 
tion of  the  benefits  conferred  by  the  new  rcgivtc.  The 
maintenance  of  the  army,  still  the  great  business  and  the 
chief  burden  of  the  Treasury,  was  a  constant  subject  of 
dispute  between  the  Financial  Department,  which  had  been 
re-organised  after  a  fashion,  since  1708.  and  the  War  Depart- 
ment, which  disorganised  all  arrangements,  and  claimed  to 
imitate  the  method  followed  in  Sweden.  But  in  Sweden, 
the  population  fed  the  soldiers  by  contracts,  regularl}'  made 
with  the  Government,  which  were  a  source,  if  anything,  of 
profit  ;  whereas  in  Russia,  the  army  and  the  population 
were  set  face  to  face,  as  creditor  and  debtor;  and  the 
Government  interfered,  with  all  the  weight  of  its  authority, 
on  the  creditor's  side  onl)'.  The  sj'stem  had  all  the  draw- 
backs of  one  of  permanent  billets. 

And  the  chief  cause  of  all, — the  lack  of  moral  education, — 
vitiated  the  principle  of  the  wisest  and  most  skilful  measures, 
and  destroyed  their  effect.  The  venality  of  the  Fiscal  Staff, 
and  the  ease  with  which  the  tax-payer  could  slip  out  of  part 
of  his  obligation,  were  both  proverbial.  In  a  document 
which  inipresses  me  with  a  sense  of  its  sincerity,  I  find  the 
following  words : — '  If,  indeed,  a  tax-collector  should  be 
found  wiio  is  proof  against  gifts, — which  in  Russia  would 
be  a  most  astonishing  thing — there  is  another  expedient  by 
which  he  may  be  deceived  ;  tliis  is  to  join  several  houses 
together  during  the  time  of  his  inspection.  These  are 
easily  separated  and  brought  back  to  their  own  placts 
within  a  few  houis,  for  they  are  all  made  of  wooden  timbers, 
and  easily  carried  about.' ^ 

In  1722,  thanks  to  the  Persian  cami)aign,  there  was  a 
fresh  and  alarming  deficit  ;  in  1723,  a  Ukase  commanded 
that  civil  and  military  salaries  should  be  paid  in  Siberian 
merchandise,  other  means  being  lacking.  In  the  same  year, 
these  same  salaries  were  diminished  by  a  compulsory  sub- 
sidy, to  supply  the  Treasurer's  urgent  needs,  and  the  servants 
of  the  State  were  forced  to  hand  back  a  portion  of  the  money 
the)'  had  never  received  !  ^  In  1724,  according  to  the  Saxon 
resident,  Lcfort,  'neither  troops,  nor  navy,  nor  departments, 

*  Mciuorandum  from  Camprcdon. 

*  Collected  Laws,  4533,  4565. 


PETER'S  ECONOMIC  WORK  477 

nor  any  one,  has  been  paid,  and  every  soul  complains  of 
poverty.'^  At  the  time  of  Peter's  death,  the  Diplomatic 
Corps,  and  all  the  strangers  in  the  capital,  were  living  in 
dread  of  the  excesses  threatened  by  the  lower  classes,  who 
were  dying  of  hunger,  and  even  by  the  soldiers,  who  had 
received  no  pay  for  the  past  sixteen  months.^ 

Thus  the  financial  policy  of  the  great  reign,  insjjired 
though  it  had  been,  by  the  necessities  ot  war,  and  framed  to 
supply  its  needs  and  demands,  failed  utterly,  even  as  regards 
the  army  it  was  destined  to  serve. 

^  SI:)ornik,  vol.  iii.  p.  3S2. 

2  Caiupiedon's  Despatch,  February  6,  1725  (French  Foreign  OlTice). 


CHAPTER    VI 

Tin:  roi.iTiCAL  work  of  petkr  the  gkkat 

Administration— The  Spirit  ami  the  Form  —  Municiiial  Autonomy  a  mere 
fiscal  expedient — The  first  eii;lu  (Jovernmenls — Anoiher  expedient — • 
Decentralisation — -The  Senate — The  Institution  develops  and  becomes  a 
centralising  organ — Absorption  and  confusion  of  Power — Administrative 
and  Financial  control — The  F'iscals — Their  unpopularity — The  Procu- 
rators— Lack  of  unity  and  equilibrium — The  '  Colleges  ' — No  general 
idea  in  their  establishment  —  Fresh  elements  of  confusion — Plethora  of 
administrative  organs  — Poverty  of  individual  administration. 

Polnr — Repression  of  Brigandage — The  low  moral  level  of  society  a  hin- 
drance to  progress. 

Justice — Peter's  tardy  atten'ion — His  d- sire  to  accomplish  everything  at 
once — Reasons  of  his  failure — General  denial  of  the  idea  of  Law — The 
progress  of  legislation  a  hindrance  to  codification — Lack  of  judicial  prin- 
ciples and  jurists — General  view. 


As  regards  economic,  social  and  intellectual  progress,  Russia 
lags,  to  this  day,  behind  her  Western  neighbours  and  rivals, 
liut  she  has  already  built  up  an  apparatus  of  human  power, 
one  of  the  most  formidable  the  world  has  ever  known — 
archaic  and  Asiatic  in  its  spirit  and  inner  structure,  modern 
and  l^vuropcan  in  all  its  outward  apfiearances.  This  is  the 
undoubted  outcome,  and  the  crowning  point,  of  Peter's 
work. 

No  idea  of  any  general  reform  of  his  Governmental  insti- 
tutions, or  of  the  constituent  elements  of  his  power,  ever 
entered  the  Tsar's  brain.  For  a  considerable  time,  and 
during  the  whole  course  of  the  Northern  war,  his  anxiety 
and  his  efforts  were  all  directed  to  the  solution  of  a  C()ni])ara- 
tively  limited  problem — that  of  raising  an  army  which  should 
beat  the  Swedes,  and  a  fleet  which  should  make  a  good  ap- 
pearance on  the  Northern  .seas,  and  of  fmding  funds  to 
keep   buth    up.      Occasionally,  accidentally   and    irregularly 


THE  POLITICAL  WORK  OF  PETER  THE  GREAT       479 

only,  his  attention  and  activity  were  applied  to  the 
exercise  of  the  essential  rights  of  his  sovereignty,  as  con- 
tained in  those  executive,  judicial,  and  legislative  powers,  the 
nature  and  effects  of  which  he  modified  and  corrected,  in 
obedience  to  what  were,  frequently,  very  ill-considered  im- 
pulses. He  ruled,  and,  at  the  same  time,  he  reformed  the 
administration  ;  he  dispensed  justice  and  organised  tribunals; 
he  made  innumerable  laws  ;  and,  while  maintaining  the  ori- 
ginal, personal^  and  despotic  principle,  on  which  his  Govern- 
ment was  based,  he  modified  its  external  appearance  after  a 
new  pattern,  which  I  shall  endeavour  to  describe. 

It  is  vain,  in  this  endeavour,  to  look  for  very  clear  and 
well-defined  outlines.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  designer  used 
his  pencil  roughly  ;  his  lines  are  scattered  and  run  zigzag, 
there  are  gaps  and  dashes,  and  that  general  incoherence 
which  marks  all  he  did.  There  is  not  even  any  symptom 
of  a  deliberate  attempt  at  transformation.  The  elimination 
of  the  old  forms,  and  the  substitution  of  new  ones,  were,  for 
the  most  part,  the  result  of  a  spontaneous  work  of  decompo- 
sition, which  prepared  the  way  for  new  organic  structures, 
and  even  called  them  into  existence.  The  workman's  will 
liad  nothing  to  do  with  this  result.  His  work  was  the  in- 
direct outcome  of  his  great  war.  Life  flowed  out  of  the  old 
worn-out  channels — worn  out  by  long  abuse — into  the  new 
ones,  which  the  urgent  necessities  of  the  moment  had  hol- 
lowed out.  On  one  side  there  was  atrophy  and  a  literal 
falling  to  pieces ;  on  the  other,  a  gradual  development. 
Peter,  in  binding  the  two  together,  here  and  there,  gave  his 
country  a  new  reform.  But  the  progress  of  the  phenomenon 
was  most  capricious,  and  its  earliest  effect  was  the  produc- 
tion of  incongruous  and  ill-assorted*combinations,  which  did 
each  other  mutual  injury.  The  new  order  of  ofiiciais,  and 
administrative  departments,  was  superadded  to  the  old  one, 
and  each  worked  against  tjie  other.  Peter's  new  collabo- 
rators—  Ministers,  Chancellors,  and  Councillors,  in  their 
luiropean  dress,  and  equipment,  and  titles,  elbowed  the 
Okolnitchjlc,  Kravtc/iyie  liud  PustielnitcJiyle  oi  \.\\<i  old  rJ^iine, 
whose  offices — which  had  been  principally  invented  as  a 
means  of  supporting  their  holders — were  to  last  as  long  as 
they  lived.  The  okl  Prikaz  stood  beside  the  new  Depart- 
ments, the  Offices  of  the  Navy  and  Artillery,  of  Supply  and 
Mines,  which  had  only  risen  into  existence,  and  begun  to 


48o  PETER  THE  GREAT 

work  in  successive  jerks,  under  the  sudden  pressure  of  some 
freshly  recognised  ncccssit)'.  Execution,  in  every  case,  fol- 
lowed close  on  the  heels  of  conception,  but  the  necessary 
measures  for  regular  practice  were  less  quick  in  llieir 
coming. 

To  conclude,  and  this  must  be  specially  noted  :  these 
new  institutions  were  Western  in  form  onl}- — the  Western 
spirit  did  not  exist.  It  would  have  been  in  too  great  con- 
tradiction with  the  essence  and  soul  of  the  existing  political 
organisation,  the  principle  of  which  remained  unchanged. 
This  fact  has  not,  as  a  rule,  been  sufficiently  understood  ; 
yet  it  is  clearly  proved  by  the  history  of  the  first  legislative 
edict  of  the  reign, — the  Ukase,  dated  30th  January  1699, 
decreeing  the  organisation  of  Municipalities  in  Russia. 
Historians,  otherwise  clear-sighted,  have  taken  this  for  a 
thoroughgoing  attempt  at  administrative  autonom.y,  in  the 
English  or  German  st\'le,  and  tlierefore  as  a  measure  of  the 
greatest  political,  economic,  and  social  scope.  According  to 
these  opinions,  the  new  Elective  Magistracies,  the  Provincial 
Chambers  {ZionskU  Izby),  the  Chamber  of  Burgomasters  at 
Moscow  (^Bouruiistrskaia  Palata\  were  intended  by  the  law- 
giver as  the  first  Russian  School  of  public  life,  in  which  the 
citizens  were  to  learn  to  combine  for  defence  of  their  com- 
mon interests,  to  cast  off  that  instinctive  isolation  which  had 
hitherto  left  the  power  in  the  hands  of  the  strongest,  and  de- 
liver all  merchants  and  manufacturers  from  the  tyranny  of 
greedy  Vdievodes}  But  we  shall  find,  if  we  consider  the 
matter  closely,  that  no  such  mighty  programme  can  justly 
be  ascribed  to  Peter.  I  am  not  even  sure  that  it  would  do 
him  honour.  Thirty  years  before  his  time,  Ordine-Xasht- 
sliokin,  Vo'icvodc  of  Pskof,  attempted  to  set  up  the  principle 
of  municipal  self-government,  with  fifteen  Starostes  elected 
by  the  Burghers  of  the  town,  to  whom  the  care  of  public  in- 
terests was  confided.  He  was  checked  by  the  difficulty  of 
reconciling  this  institution  with  the  general  spirit  of  the 
regime  then  prevailing — with  the  principle,  that  is  to  say, 
of  absolute  power — and  its  existence  was  of  the  shortest. - 
In  1699,  Peter  was  doubtless  quite  aware  of  this  experiment, 
and  had  no  idea  of  renewing  it.     His  sole  desire  was  to  dress 

'  Ousuialuf,  vol.  iii.  p.  260;  Briickiier,  History  of  Teler  the  Great,  p.  506. 
"^  Ditialin,  Studies  for  a   History  of  Russian  Law  (St.   IVlurbbiir};,    lii'jS), 
p.  460,  t.'lC. 


■     THE  POLITICAL  WORK  OF  PETER  THE  GREAT       481 

up  the  old  Administrative  Departments  {Prikaznyle  Izbj) 
already  existing — and  charged  with  the  care,  not  of  local 
interests,  but  of  those  of  the  Sovereign — in  an  English  or 
German  dress.  He  sought  to  increase  the  activity  of  his 
tax-collectors,  and  to  provide  them  better  for  their  work  ; 
and  his  general  and  somewhat  simple-minded  faith  in  the 
value  of  outward  appearances  and  forms,  inclined  him  to 
this  imitation  of  autonomy.  But,  apart  from  the  electoral 
principle,  now  introduced  into  their  organisation  (which  of 
itself  was  by  no  means  a  novelty  in  Russia),  the  new  Magis- 
tracies were  exactly  like  the  old  ones,  and  were  only  called 
to  do  their  predecessors'  work  with  greater  severity.  Those 
who  came  under  their  lash  had  no  doubt  on  this  point.  The 
electors  were  driven  to  the  poll,  and  the  elected  candidates 
were  kept  in  their  places,  by  dint  of  fines  and  heavy  blows. 
As  for  the  Vozevodes,  they  thrashed  the  new  Burgomasters 
just  as  they  had  thrashed  their  predecessors.  The  great 
work  so  pompously  described  was  nothing,  after  all,  but  a 
fiscal  expedient. 

So  also  was  the  creation,  in  1708,  of  the  eight  great  Ad- 
ministrative centres  called  Governments.  These,  like  every- 
thing else  at  that  period,  were  the  outcome  of  the  war.  The 
first  military  and  financial  centre  arose  out  of  the  creation 
of  the  fleet  at  Voroneje,  and  the  establishment  of  a  Russian 
Port  at  Azof.  The  conquest  of  Ingria  and  Carelia  resulted 
in  the  constitution  of  the  first  Government  in  the  newly- 
acquired  territory;  this  was  intrusted  to  Menshikof.  The 
advance  of  Charles  xn.  into  the  heart  of  Russia,  centralised 
the  military  and  financial  resources  for  the  defence  of  the 
country  in  the  hands  of  the  Vo'ievodes  oi  Sn\o\Q.x\s\<.  and  Kief; 
the  repression  of  the  insurrectionary  movement  on  the  banks 
of  the  Volga,  brought  about  the  establishment  of  a  Govern- 
ment at  Astrakhan.  These  were  all  so  many  new  admini- 
strative units,  each  of  which  served  as  a  nucleus  for  the  new 
organisation  set  on  foot  just  before  the  Battle  of  Poltava. 
This  organisation  was  no  more  than  the  adjustment  and 
fusion  of  the  elements  thus  prepared,  and,  by  it.  the  t\'pe  of 
administration  already  developed  on  Swedish  models  in  the 
Government  of  Ingria,  was  made  general  throughout  Russia. 
F'rom  the  territorial  point  of  view,  these  eight  Governments 
partly  corresponded  with  former  mihtary  and  financial  dis- 
tricts, already  called  into  existence   by   local    needs.     The 


4Si  PETER  THE  GREAT 

very  name  of  Governor  was  only  a  translation  of  the  Russian 
name  i;iven  to  the  heads  of  these  districts,  Voicvodcs,  or 
'Leaders  of  the  War.'  As  early  as  1694,  Peter  addressed 
the  Voic7'ode  of  Archanc^el,  in  Dutch,  as  '  Min  Her  Giibcruor'. 

The  Reform  of  1708  belies,  in  this  particular,  the  criticism 
so  frecjuently  made  as  to  its  accidental  and  mechanical 
character.  The  pre-existinjj  military  and  financial  districts, 
of  which  the  territorial  limits  were  partial!}'  adopted,  were, 
in  themselves,  somewhat  arbitrary  and  artificial.  But  the 
creation  of  provinces,  in  the  European  sense  of  that  word, — 
conveyini^  the  idea  of  an  organic  unity, — does  not  exist  in 
Russian  history,  Peter  merely  combined  his  work  with  an 
organisation  already  installed,  after  a  fashion,  on  the  shifting 
soil  of  his  native  country.  Other  fault  may  be  more  justly 
found  with  his  endeavour. 

As  I  have  already  pointed  out,  he  thought  less,  in  the  first 
instance,  of  forging  an  instrument  of  government,  tiian  of 
finding  means  to  fill  his  Treasury.  Peter's  temporary 
Minister  of  Finance,  Kourbatof,  resolutely  opposed  the  new 
Governments,  and  defended  the  regular  principles  of  adminis- 
tration, at  which  they  dealt  a  blow.  He  was  all  for  adminis- 
trative centralisation  at  the  '  Hotel  de  Ville.'  But  the 
Sovereign  would  not  hear  of  it.  If  the  revenues  of  the 
State  were  centralised  at  the  '  Hotel  de  Ville,'  they  could 
not  fail  to  be  applied  to  the  needs  of  the  various  branches  of 
the  public  service  there  represented  ;  and  his  great  aim  was 
to  apply  the  greater  part  of  them  to  one  special  need  and 
service — the  carr}'ing  on  of  his  war.  These  isolated  govern- 
ments, whose  only  direct  connection  with  the  State  would 
exist  at  the  Ruler's  will,  were  likelv  to  be  more  manageable 
and  more  useful  for  this  object.  He  had  invented  them  for 
this  purpose,  and  for  the  sake  of  it  lie  had  broken  with  the 
centralising  principles  of  the  seventeenth  century,  which  iiad 
brought  about  the  unity  of  the  country.  He  put  forward  all 
the  accessory  advantages  which,  as  he  claimed,  this  rupture 
would  confirm,  declaring  his  new  Governments  would  be 
easier  of  control,  and  the  taxes  more  easily  collected.  I^ut, 
in  real  truth,  he  looked  at  the  question  from  the  military, 
and  not  from  the  political  point  of  view.  And  further,  he 
studied  his  own  personal  convenience.  He  was  an  incessant 
tiavcllcr;  he  saw  no  necessity  for  having  any  centre  of 
guvcrnnicnt,  or  rather,  he  tlunr^lit  the  centre  of  government 


THE  POLITICAL  WORK  OF  PETER  THE  GREAT       483 

might  very  easily  follow  his  journej's.  As  for  reconciling 
the  advantages  of  centralisation  with  those  of  local  autonomy, 
he  was  not  learned  enough  (in  1708,  at  all  events),  to  dream 
of  such  a  thing.  He  had  no  idea,  to  begin  with,  of  clearly 
defining  the  rights  of  the  administrative  bodies  he  had  estab- 
lished. He  first  divided  the  country  and  the  towns  between 
his  eight  Governments,  and  then  the  anxieties  of  his  war 
claimed  him,  and  he  appears  to  have  forgotten  all  about 
them,  and  even  kept  his  new  Governors,  who  were  also  his 
generals,  in  his  camp.  It  was  not  until  the  spring  of  1709, 
when  the  melting  of  the  snows  gave  him  a  little  breathing 
space,  that  he  presented  them  with  the  official  statistics  of 
their  various  districts,  adding  orders  to  '  give  close  attention 
to  the  collection  of  the  taxes,  and  to  all  the  interests  of  the 
State.'  This  was  the  only  information  vouchsafed  as  to 
their  new  duties. 

The  Governors'  ideas  on  the  subject  were,  as  may  be 
imagined,  very  limited.  They  really  scarcely  knew  what 
they  were  expected  to  do,  nor  how  they  were  to  do  it,  and 
the  Sovereign  does  not  appear  to  have  been  in  a  position  to 
give  satisfactory  answers  to  the  piles  of  official  correspond- 
ence addressed  to  him  on  the  subject,  How,  to  begin  with, 
was  the  financial  administration  to  be  removed  from  the 
offices  of  the  *  Hotel  de  Ville,'  where  it  was  actually  estab- 
lished, into  those  of  the  various  governments,  where  it  ought 
to  be  ?  This  was  more  than  either  he  or  they  could  tell, 
and  Kourbatof  himself  had  to  be  appealed  to.  Then,  how 
were  the  administrative  functions  of  the  governors  to  be 
reconciled  with  their  permanent  presence  with  the  armies 
they  commanded  ?  This  difficulty  was  solved  by  the  appoint- 
ment of  substitutes,  under  the  name  of  Laitdrichtet's.  And 
how,  to  conclude,  were  these  substitutes  to  be  made  to  realise 
that  their  chief  duty  was  to  fill  the  Tsar's  war-chests  .-* 

From  the  very  first  a  bitter  conflict  arose  over  the  contra- 
diction between  the  real  and  apparent  objects  of  the  new 
organisation.  Peter's  only  thought  was  to  extract  money 
from  the  provincial  administrations,  and  as  these  felt  obliged 
to  defend  the  general  interests  of  their  provinces,  a  struggle 
began,  like  that  between  an  unwilling  debtor  and  an  exact- 
ing creditor.  Both  sides  played  the  keenest  game ;  every 
kind  of  subterfuge  was  attempted,  to  forestall  disposable 
funds  on  one  side,  and  protect  them  on  the  other.     Peter,  of 


484  PETER  THE  GREAT 

course,  always  liad  tlic  last  word,  for  lie  could  fall  back  on 
his  usual  tiictliods.  A  ukase,  dated  6th  June  17 12,  simply 
deprived  the  Government  of  St.  Petersburg  of  tiie  revenues 
paid  by  certain  districts,  and  made  them  over  to  the  Admir- 
alty. That  same  day  a  sum  of  10,000  roubles  was  forcibly 
levied  on  the  funds  of  the  same  Government,  to  pay  the 
arrears  due  to  Frenchmen  and  Hun^^arians  serving  in  the 
Tsar's  army.  He.  was  so  pleased  with  this  expedient,  that 
it  was  frequently  repeated,  especially  after  the  removal  of 
the  Senate  to  St.  Petersburg.  The  local  Treasury  was 
constantly  laid  under  contribution.  Any  idea  of  conforming 
to  the  table  of  receipts  and  expenses  drawn  up  in  171 1  was 
utterly  abandoned.     Absolute  chaos  reigned. 

It  should  be  added  that  Peter  took  it  into  his  head  to 
imitate  a  Swedish  practice  which  had  been  reported  to  him, 
and  charged  the  different  Governments  with  the  supjwrt  of 
his  regiments.  As  these  regiments  were  constantly  on  active 
service,  commissioners  were  delegated,  by  the  various  Govern- 
ments, to  provide  for  their  food  and  equipment — a  fresh 
complication  in  a  machine  already  sorely  cloL;ged. 

The  most  immediate  and  evident  result  of  the  reform  was 
the  constitution  of  fat  offices,  for  the  possession  of  which  the 
Sovereign's  favourites  wrangled,  in  which  they  trafficked, 
and  whose  holders,  having  bought  them  at  a  heavy  price, 
were  driven  to  indemnify  themselves  at  the  expense  of  those 
under  their  care.  If  any  information  was  laid  against  them 
— a  rare  event,  for  such  traffickers  are  generally  wary — they 
got  out  of  the  difficulty  by  following  the  example  of  the 
Turks,  and  offering  their  master  a  bonus  on  the  fruit  of  their 
thievery.  Peter's  system  tended,  besides,  to  make  his 
Governors  a  sort  of  farmers-general,  possessing  almost  com- 
plete latitude  as  to  the  manner  in  which  they  raised  the 
funds  out  of  which  the  huge  war  contribution  demanded  of 
them  was  paid.  The  new  organisation,  wrong  in  its  original 
conception,  and  still  more  faulty  in  its  first  workings,  did 
not  put  on  any  appearance  of  decency,  regularity,  and 
system  until  the  last  years  of  Peter's  reign,  when  it  began 
to  benefit  by  the  peaceful  condition  of  the  country,  and 
came  in  contact  with  the  Swedish  military  and  administra- 
tive system,  established  in  the  conquered  Baltic  Provinces.^ 

'  See,  wilh  regard  to  this  subject,  the  remarkable,  though   sonicwhnt  gloomy 
picture  drawn  by  M.  Milioukof,  in  his  work  already  quoted,  p.  291,  etc. 


THE  POLITICAL  WORK  OF  PETER  THE  GREAT       485 

The  creation  of  the  Senate,  in  171  r,  was  another  great 
step  in  Peter's  gradual  eHmination  of  the  old  administrative 
bodies,  or  their  external  assimilation  to  the  western  type. 
But  the  honour  of  having  replaced  the  former  Council  of 
Boyards,  or  Boiarskala  Doinna,  by  this  new  assembly,  has 
been  wrongly  ascribed  to  Peter.  Though  nothing  is  known 
as  to  the  precise  date  of  the  disappearance  of  this  super- 
annuated relic  of  the  ancient  Muscovite  State,  this  one  thing 
is  certain,  that,  in  171 1,  it  did  not  exist.  It  had  already 
been  replaced,  since  1700,  at  all  events,  by  a  Council  of 
Ministers,  which  sat  in  the  Private  Ch?.x\cery  {Blijnam  Kant- 
selaria),  and  is  frequently  confused  with  it.  From  the  very 
outset  Peter  withdrew  a  most  important  department  from 
the  jurisdiction  of  this  Council,  and  kept  the  management  in 
his  own  hands.  I  refer  to  a  whole  category  of  Crown  rights 
which  he  claimed  to  direct,  according  to  his  special  personal 
views,  with  the  assistance  of  special  functionaries,  the  Pry- 
bylshtcJiiki.  At  the  moment  of  his  departure  for  the  campaign 
of  the  Pruth.  he  was  at  a  loss  what  to  do  with  this  adminis- 
tration, which  had  grown  to  considerable  proportions,  and 
the  first  duty  he  required  of  the  Senate  was  to  relieve  him 
of  it.  Tliis  was  another  war  expedient.  The  ukase  which 
c.dled  the  new  institution  into  life  was  published  the  very 
day  of  the  ])roclamation  of  a  war  with  Turkey,  and  though 
the  general  idea,  and  the  name,  were  borrowed  from  Sweden 
or  Poland,  the  assembly  was  thus  endowed  with  a  character 
of  its  own.  Peter  was  far  from  foreseeing  the  much  more 
important  part  it  was  to  play  in  later  years. 

It  was  intended,  in  the  first  place, — and  this  was  natural, — 
to  supply  the  want  of  those  central  institutions,  which  the  work 
of  decomposition,  to  which  I  have  already  referred,  had 
caused  to  disappear.  The  Reform  of  1708- 17 10  had 
made  no  provision  for  reconciling  the  new  provincial 
organisation  with  the  old  administration,  centralised  at 
Moscow.  Its  only  result  had  been  to  destroy  this  last. 
The  Private  Chancery  had  thus  become  the  only  centralis- 
ing power  in  the  country,  and  it  had  proved  notably  in- 
adequate for  the  work  it  had  to  do.  But  it  was  not  till  1714 
that  the  new  Assembly  was  charged  with  a  permanent 
commission  to  remedy  this  inadequacy,  by  itself  despatching 
a  certain  amount  of  current  business.  P'rom  1711-1718,  the 
respective  rights  of  the  Chancery  and  the  Senate  remained 


486  PETER  THE  GREAT 

undefined.  The  other  public  bodies,  not  knowing  to  which 
their  repc^rts,  or  requests,  should  be  addressed,  generally 
settled  the  matter  by  following  a  policy  of  total  abstention. 
It  was  only  by  degrees, — by  means  of  Ukases  published 
from  }ear  to  }'ear,  and,  sometimes,  from  month  to  month, — 
that  the  rights  of  the  Senate  were  augmented  and  defined. 
These  rights,  before  the  creation  of  the  Administrative 
Departments,  extended  over  the  whole  field  of  Government 
action,  that  is  to  say,  over  the  administration,  properly  so 
called,  justice,  police,  army,  finances,  trade,  and  foreign 
politics.  The  Senate  had  the  care  of  the  supplies  for  troops 
on  active  service,  of  the  sale  of  all  State  merchandise,  of  the 
canals,  of  the  cleaning  of  the  St.  Petersburg  streets.  Until 
and  even  after,  the  establishment  of  the  Holy  Synod,  it 
intervened  in  ecclesiastical  matters.  In  1720,  it  carried  on 
negotiations  with  Poland,  with  the  object  of  strengthening 
Russian  influence  in  that  country  ;  and  it  was  the  final  judge 
in  civil  and  criminal  cases.^  In  1724,  Peter  ordered  the 
Ukases  published  by  the  Senate  to  be  printed  concurrently 
with  his  own,  and  thus  set  his  seal  upon  a  legislative  power 
which  he  had  for  some  years  practically  recognised.  He 
treated  the  principle  of  the  division  of  power  with  com- 
plete indifference,  and  indeed  the  only  European  characteris- 
tic of  his  Senate  was  its  name.  He  excused  himself  in  his 
own  eyes,  by  the  reflection  that  the  whole  arrangement  was 
purely  provisional,  and  intended  to  be  followed  by  one  of  a 
more  regular  nature. 

Meanwhile,  the  Senators  had  '  everything  in  their  hands.' 
This  was  the  Tsar's  own  expression.  But  he  expected  a 
faithful  discharge  of  the  duties  and  responsibilities  conferred 
upon  them.  He  had  given  them  much, — he  expected  a 
great  deal  in  return.  The  unlucky  representatives  of  his  sove- 
reign authority  were  pelted  with  reproaches,  reprimands,  and 
threats.  He  wrote,  'You  must  have  done  that  in  joke,  or 
because  you  had  received  vziatki  (bribes) ; — but  I  will  make 
you  come  here  (into  Ingria),  and  you  will  be  questioned  in  a 
very  different  fashion  !  '^  These  reproaches  were  frequently, 
and  unhappily,  only  too  well  justified.  The  Dutch  Resident, 
De  Bie,  writes  in  November  1714,  'The  great  drawback  is 
that  all  business  is  made  over  to  the  Senate,  which  never 
decides  anything.' 

»  Pctrovski,  The  Senate  under  Peter  the  Great  {Mo'^cow,  1875),  pp.  224-238. 
*  Ukase  to  the  Senate,  Sept.  1711  (Archives  of  the  Ministry  of  Justice). 


THE  POLITICAL  WORK  OF  PETER  THE  GREAT       487 

Peter  judged  it  necessary,  from  the  very  outset,  to  com- 
plete his  creation  by  the  addition  of  a  controlling  body.  He 
began  by  causing  certain  officers  of  his  staff  to  be  present  at 
the  sittings,  with  orders  to  watch  the  deliberations.  Then 
he  invented  the  Fiscals;  but  the  name  only,  this  time, 
was  borrowed  from  Sweden,  the  thing  itself  was  essenti- 
ally local.  The  inquisitorial  policy  of  the  Tsar  turned  the 
Swedish  Comptrollers  into  spies,  in  the  worst  sense  of  the 
word.  Until  17 14,  any  Fiscal  could  give  information,  which 
might  be  proved  false  and  calumnious,  without  incurring  the 
slightest  responsibility,  and  the  informer  shared  the  fines  he 
caused  to  be  inflicted,  with  the  Tsar's  Treasury.  Stephen 
lavorski  had  to  thunder  a  bold  reproof  in  the  Cathedral  of 
the  Assumption,  in  17 12,  before  this  odious  abuse  of  power  was 
tardily  diminished.  By  a  Ukase  published  17th  March  1714, 
intentional  error  on  the  part  of  these  agents  was  rendered 
punishable. 

An  Ober-Fiscal,  or  Chief  Comptroller,  was  attached  to  the 
Senate.  The  appointment  of  this  official,  replaced  in  1722 
by  a  '  General-P rocoiiror^  was  a  real  progress,  for  the  various 
authorities  which  had  long  been  independently  exercised, — 
the  Tsar,  the  Senate  and  the  various  branches  of  the 
Executive  Power, — were  thus  brought  into  connection.  Ihe 
Gcneral-Procouror  held  intercourse  with  these  last  through 
Procourors  placed  under  his  orders,  and  himself  acted  as 
intermediary  between  the  Tsar  and  the  Senate.  Peter 
modelled  this  office,  doubtless,  on  that  of  the  Swedish 
Oinbtitsjnati,  delegated  by  the  Government  to  the  judicial 
body.  But  his  General-Procoiiror,  having  no  seat  in  the 
Chief  Assembly,  bore  a  yet  closer  resemblance  to  the 
P^rench  Procurciir-Gencral  of  that  period,  attached  to  the 
l^'rench  Parliament.  Like  him,  he  possessed  a  right  of 
active  intervention  in  the  exercise  of  those  powers  he  was 
called  upon  to  watch.  He  might  even  take  the  initiative  ; 
he  had  legislative  functions  ;  he  had  a  Deputy  who  bore  the 
name  of  Obcr-Proconror.  lagoujinski  was  the  first  person  to 
hold  this  post.  These  Procourors,  attached,  as  controlHng 
agents,  to  the  various  branches  of  power,  advantageously 
replaced  the  Fiscals,  whose  functions  had  been  exercised 
independently,  and  who  bore  an  objectionable  resemblance 
to  Secret  Police. 

Until  the  year  17 18,  the  Russian  Senate  remained  a 
32 


488  PETER  THE  GREAT 

mongrel  and  ill-balanced  institution.  It  could  not  preside, 
like  the  Swedish  Senate,  over  the  workini;  of  the  Admini- 
strative Bodies,  because  no  such  liodies  existed.  It  did  not 
consist,  like  the  Swedish  Senate,  of  the  Heads  of  'Colleges^ 
gathered  in  Council,  because  there  were  no  such  Colleges  in 
existence. 

Peter  early  realised  the  advantages  of  the  collegial  form, 
and  carried  his  admiration  to  a  somewhat  exaggerated  point. 
Leibnitz  had  praised  it,  telling  him  its  structure  'resembled 
that  of  a  clock.'  Peter  would  gladly  have  turned  clock- 
maker,  but  he  had  no  wheels.  Those  of  the  old  prikases 
were  all  worn  out.  We  do  not  know  how  and  when  the  idea 
of  replacing  them  by  these  Departments  or  '  Colleges '  grew 
and  developed  in  his  mind.  It  was  the  outcome,  probably,  of 
a  series  of  suggestions.  During  the  Tsar's  stay  in  England, 
in  1698.  Francis  Lee  submitted  to  him,  at  his  ow^n  request, 
a  plan  of  government  by  seven  Coiiunittccs  or  Colleges}  In 
1702,  Patkul  suggested,  in  a  memorandum,  the  organisation 
of  a  'Geheimes  Kriegs  Collegium' ;2  in  171 1,  Bliicher,  a 
Saxon  engineer,  recommended  the  establishment  of  a 
'College  of  Mines,'  but  the  Reformer  was  still  inclined,  at 
that  period,  to  a  thoughtless  destruction  of  all  centralis- 
ing institutions.  It  was  not  till  1712  that  an  anonymous 
memorandum  on  the  utility  of  a  'College  of  Commerce' 
turned  his  mobile  mind  in  an  opposite  direction.  The 
Sovereign,  with  his  usual  prompt  decision,  answered  the 
memorandum  in  most  unexpected  fashion.  By  his  Ukase, 
dated  12th  February  17 12,  he  decreed  the  creation  of  the 
'  College  of  Commerce.'  The  decision  in  this  case  did  not.  it 
must  be  acknowledged,  go  beyond  an  expressed  intention  ; 
no  more  was  heard  of  it  till  1715.  At  that  period,  the  new 
institution,  which  had  first  been  attempted  at  Moscow, 
made  a  sudden  reaj^pearance  at  St.  Petersburg.  It  was 
already  provided  with  a  director,  bearing  the  name  of 
Apraxin,  and  he  was  about  the  sum-total  of  its  possessions. 
But  J^eter's  note-books  prove  that  the  idea  occupied  him, 
and  had  grown  familiar  to  his  mind.  It  was  still  confused 
enough,  floating  between  an  Office  (^Prikaz)  of  Mines,  a 
Tribunal  attached  to  the  Senate,  which  was  to  be  a  '  College 

^  Proposals  given  to  Peter  the  Great  (London,  1 752). 

'   Writings  and  Correspondence  of  Peter  the  Great,  vol.  ii.  pp.  39-50. 

'  Milioukof,  p.  567. 


THE  POLITICAL  WORK  OF  PETER  THE  GREAT       489 

of  Justice,'  and  a  '  Colleq;e  of  Commerce.'  But  a  little  later, 
an  autograph  note  b}'  the  Tsar  sketches  out  a  complete 
organisation  to  consist  of  six  'Colleges'  on  the  Swedish 
models  Henry  Pick,  who  was  then  in  the  Imperial  service, 
probably  had  something  to  do  with  this  plan,  and  the  first 
detailed  project  may  have  been  drawn  up  by  him.^ 

He  certainly  went  into  Sweden,  in  December  17 15,  to 
study  the  subject  on  the  spot,  but  two  more  years  passed 
before  anything  was  done.  Peter  was  travelling.  Towards 
the  end  of  1715,  he  received,  through  Boetticher,  his  Resident 
at  Hamburg,  some  Reflections  '  iiber  des  RussiscJicn  Reiches 
Staats-Q^conoinie,'  by  Baron  Christian  Luberas,  whose  son 
was  in  the  Russian  service, — and  Luberas*  was  forthwith 
employed  to  draw  up  a  definite  plan. 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  no  general  idea  inspir'^d  the  projected 
reform,  and  the  partial  notions  out  of  which  it  proceeded, 
were  all  of  foreign  origin.  The  Reformer  had  no  very  clear 
idea,  at  starting,  of  whither  his  steps  were  to  tend,  and  his 
horizons  broadened  as  he  proceeded  on  his  way.  Problems 
presented  themselves  to  his  notice  ;  he  employed  foreigners 
to  seek  for  a  solution,  and  they  drew  up  plans  ;  Peter,  with 
his  natural  aptitude,  seized  on  their  principal  features,  and 
then  called  on  his  Russian  collaborators  to  adapt  them  to 
the  local  needs  of  his  Empire.  Thereupon,  and,  generally, 
somewhat  prematurely,  he  issued  a  Ukase.  The  faults  of 
the  conception  became  evident  in  its  practical  working,  and 
Peter's  readiness  to  acknowledge  these,  was  both  sincere 
and  wise.  He  undid  what  he  had  begun,  and  started 
afresh. 

And  thus,  in  spite  of  many  Ukases,  the  Colleges,  in 
17 17,  were  still  in  an  unfinished  condition.  The  Tsar  con- 
fined himself,  that  year,  to  deciding  on  the  number  and  the 
nature  of  these  bodies,  and  appointing  their  presidents. 
Then  the  work  was  stopped  by  one  of  his  prolonged 
absences.  When  Golikof,  and  Peter's  own  journal,  mention 
these  Colleges  as  being  in  active  work  at  this  pcriotl,  they 
refer  to  the  Chanceries  of  War,  of  the  Admiralty  and  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  which  were  already  currently  designated  by 
that  name.^     But  the  Kamer-Kollegia,  or  Treasury,  was  not 

*  Sbornik,  vol.  xi.  pp.  285,  286. 

2  Published  by  Piekarski,  in  his  History  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  vol.  i. 
p.  23.  ^  Miliouicof,  p.  5S9. 


490  PETER  THE  GREAT 

regularly  established  till  1/22,  and  the  organisation  of 
the  other  Colleges  was  barely  sketched  out  in  1720  and 
1 72 1.  Peter  himself  had  not  much  to  do  with  this  pre- 
liminary work.  It  was  not  until  1722,  that  he  took  some 
personal  part,  with  reference  to  the  regulations  for  the 
College  of  the  Admiralty,  which  he  desired  to  draw  up  him- 
self. It  then  became  evident  that  he  was  in  complete 
ignorance  of  what  had  already  been  done,  and  that  his  ideas 
on  the  subject  were  of  the  most  rudimentary  and  childish 
nature.  On  the  nth  of  May  1722,  he  published  a  Ukase, 
commanding  that  the  regulations  for  all  the  other  Colleges 
should  be  copied  on  those  of  the  Admiralty.  The  only 
change  to  be  introduced  was  that  of  'altering  the  ?iaiiies 
sJiould  it  appear  necessary'  ^  Now  the  regulations  for  all 
these  other  Colleges  had  already  been  drawn  up,  and  the 
'College  of  Patrimonial  Property'  {VotteJiinnaia  Kollegia), 
the  only  one  which  literally  followed  the  Sovereign's  orders, 
made  itself  a  laughing  stock. 

During  Peter's  life,  the  results  of  this  reform  were  only 
partly  evident.  There  was  one  immediate  benefit ;  I  mean 
the  restoration  of  the  unity  of  the  Treasury,  which,  since  the 
creation  of  the  Governments,  had  disappeared  in  the  ruins  of 
administrative  centralisation.  Close  upon  this  came  the 
re-establishment  of  a  properly-balanced  Budget,  which,  since 
1704,  had  also  disappeared.  Hut  this  last  benefit  was  at 
once  imperilled  by  a  swift  return,  in  practical  matters,  to 
those  national  traditions  to  which  the  adoption  of  Western 
methods  was  most  unpalatable.  The  principle  of  generalisa- 
tion was  admitted,  but,  in  practice,  all  receipts  and  expenses 
were  specialised,  and  certain  sources  of  revenue  were  effected 
to  certain  particular  outlays.  Tiiis  condition  of  disorder 
extended  to  administrative  matters.  The  Colleges  were 
subordinated  to  the  Senate,  but  an  exception  was  made  in 
favour  of  three,  those  of  War,  the  Navy,  and  Foreign 
Affairs,  which  were  permitted  the  privilege  of  corresponding 
directly  with  the  Sovereign,  and  thus  given  rank  above  that 
of  the  Chief  Assembly.  Decentralisation  reappeared,  and 
brought  insubordination  and  chaos  in  its  train. 

And  this  was  not  all.  To  the  Colleges  were  added 
'Financial  Provinces'  on  the  Swedish  s}'stem.  This,  in 
itself,  was  a  good   thing,  but  these  Provinces   were  called 

*  Collected  Laws,  No.  4008. 


THE  POLITICAL  WORK  OF  PETER  THE  GREAT       491 

upon  to  perform  the  same  work  as  the  established  Govern- 
ments, which  ah'eady  formed  regular  financial  and  admini- 
strative districts.  The  Colleges  themselves,  in  man}'  re- 
spects, held  the  same  functions  as  the  Senate.  There  was 
too  much  machinery  now,  and  not  enough  men  to  work  it. 
The  Tsar  was  reduced  to  sending  his  Swedish  prisoners  to 
fill  up  his  innumerable  offices  !  ^  The  whole  thing  had  been 
overdone,  and  many  palaces,  like  the  houses  in  the  new 
Capital,  were  likely  to  be  left  untenanted.  Trouble  was  ex- 
perienced, even  in  finding  a  sufficient  number  of  respectable- 
looking  Senators.  One  of  the  first,  Prince  Michael  Vladi- 
mirovitch  Dolgorouki,  could  not  write  his  name.'^  None  of 
them  had  any  experience  of  business,  any  idea  of  their  real 
duty,  any  desire  to  perform  it.  nor,  for  the  most  part,  any 
personal  integrity  whatever.  The  time  of  the  Colleges  was 
wasted,  so  one  of  Peter's  Ukases  declares,  in  gossip  and  abuse 
Mike  women  selling  at  street  stalls.'  In  1715,  Prince 
Volkonski,  a  Senator,  and  one  of  the  Directors  of  the  Mint, 
named  Apouhtin,  were  convicted  of  fraud,  knouted,  and  their 
tongues  were  pierced  with  red-hot  irons.^  Such  punishments 
did  not,  as  a  general  rule,  result  in  the  removal  of  the  culprit 
from  the  public  service — the  difficulty  of  replacing  him  was 
far  too  serious.  In  1723,  Skorniakof-Pissaref  lost  his  office, 
his  titles  and  his  goods,  and  was  degraded  to  the  rank  of  a 
private  soldier,  but  he  was  at  once  given  a  commission  to 
superintend  the  Ladoga  Canal  Works. 

Peter  contrived  to  place  his  army  and  his  Admini- 
stration on  a  European  footing,  but  he  found  it  easier  to 
secure  soldiers  than  administrators.  The  Reformer  borrowed 
the  Collegial  form  from  Europe,  but  he  did  not  succeed  in 
assimilating  its  living  spirit,  and  principle, — of  common  toil 
and  divided  responsibility.  He  never  endeavoured,  indeed, 
to  secure  what  a  recent  Russian  writer  has  described  as  '  too 
exotic  a  fruit  to  flourish  in  our  country.''*  All  Peter  attained 
was  the  estabhshment  of  a  Bureaucracy. 

^  Collet  ted  Laws,  No.  31 01. 

"^  Petrovski,  p.  50. 

"  Do  Hie's  Despatch  to  the  Slates-General  April,  26,  17 1 5  (Dulch  Ai chives). 

*  Milioukof,  p.  565. 


492  PETER  THE  GREAT 

II 

The  blemishes  in  the  ^re.it  Tsar's  work  are  largely 
acc(ninted  for  by  the  nature  of  the  moral  foundation  on 
which  he  built  it.  This  is  as  evident  in  police,  as  in  admini- 
strative, matters.  His  cjreat  object,  in  this  latter  department, 
was  the  rejjression  of  brigandage,  a  plague-spot  which  the 
savage  habits  of  the  period,  the  national  inclination  to  the 
nomadic  form  of  existence,  and  the  political  troubles  of  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  had  maintained  and 
deepened.  In  vain  did  the  Sovereign  strive  to  burn  it  out 
with  hot  irons  ;  the  hand  of  every  class  in  society  was  against 
him.  In  1695,  a  Prince  Ouhtomski  and  two  members, — 
brothers, — of  the  Sheremetief  family,  were  taken  red-handed, 
sacking  a  house  in  Moscow,  and  murdering  the  inhabitants,^ 
The  evil  had  been  increased  by  the  manner  in  which  Peter's 
predecessors  had  hesitated  between  two  methods  of  cure — 
excessive  severity,  and  extreme  clemency.  They  had  even 
condescended  to  offers  of  pardon,  and  entreaties  to  desist. 
Matters  had  reached  a  point  at  which  all  further  hesitation 
was  impossible, — and  my  readers  will  imagine  to  which  side 
Peter  inclined.  Me  issued  orders  that  any  robber,  who  was 
not  hanged,  was  to  have  his  nose  cut  off  '  to  the  bone'  and 
another  edict  commanded  that  all  such  malefactors  should, 
without  any  exception  whatsoever,  be  hanged  on  the  spot. 
This  remedy  was  disastrous  in  its  eftects.  According 
to  Possoshkof,  and  even  on  Peter's  own  admission,  brigand- 
age steadily  increased.  This  was  the  result  of  the  extreme 
severity,  and  generally  unreasonable  nature,  of  the  existing 
regime.  The  brigands  and  the  Cossack  mutineers,  were, 
most  of  them,  insurgents  against  the  Tsar's  rule.  The 
malefactors  had  their  '  art  els'  ']\X)r,\.  as,  elsewhere,  there  have 
been  revolutionary  clubs.  The  police  regulations  at  St. 
Petersburg  were  numerous,  minute,  and  altogether  excessive. 
In  a  country  where  mendicity  had  been,  for  centuries,  one  of 
the  ordinary  elements  of  social  life,  alms-giving  was  punished, 
and  the  beggar  was  threatened  with  the  knout  and  with  hard 
labour.  During  17 19,  five  or  six  persons  were  daily  Hogged 
on  this  account.-  This,  in  itself,  proves  how  ineffectual  the 
measure  was.     And  those  taken  by  the  police  to  put  a  stop 

'  Jeliahoiijski,  pp.  19,  42. 


i 


Ivoslomarof,  History  0/  Russia^  vol.  ii.  p.  629. 


THE  POLITICAL  WORK  OF  PETER  THE  GREAT       493 

to  another  national  plague-spot — the  incessant  fires — were 
equally  useless.  During  one  day,  in  1712,  9  monasteries, 
86  churches,  35  charitable  institutions,  32  public  buildings 
and  4000  private  houses,  were  burnt  in  Moscow,  and  136 
human  victims  fell  a  prey  to  the  devouring  element.^ 

It  was  a  hard  thing  for  Russian  society  to  cast  off  the 
conditions  of  savagery,  and  the  justice  of  the  country  did 
but  little  to  help  the  administration  and  the  police  to  forward 
the  work  of  evolution. 


Ill 

With  regard  to  judicial  matters,  Peter  found  himself  face 
to  face  with  an  inveterate  idea,  only  quite  recently  eradicated 
from  the  Russian  mind,  that  all  functions,  whether  admini- 
strative or  judicial,  constituted  not  a  duty,  but  a  profitable 
privilege,  for  their  holder.  This  was  the  affirmation  and 
perpetuation  of  the  ancient  system  of  the  Kormleiiie  (that 
which  feeds).  The  only  object  of  the  office  was  held  to  be 
the  support  of  the  official."  '  In  Russia,'  wrote  Krijanitch,  a 
Servian,  and  contemporary  of  Locke,  'justice  is  a  saleable  com- 
modity.' Possoshkof  repeats  the  assertion  in  another  form, 
and  all  foreigners,  Herberstein,  Fletcher,  Olearius,  and  Mas- 
kiewicz,  refer  to  the  evil.  Peter  could  not  do  away  with  it. 
In  1724,  he  was  still  making  laws  against  dishonest  judges. 

The  Dukes  of  Moscow  had  won  their  supremacy,  not  so 
much  by  the  sword,  as  by  gifts  bestowed  on  Tartar  officials. 
Russia  had  been  brought  up  in  this  school,  and  bore  its 
mark.  Bribery  was  in  the  blood.  Peter  did  not  turn  his 
attention  to  this  portion  of  his  work  till  somewhat  late  in 
his  career.  With  the  exception  of  a  Ukase  against  bribes, 
published  in  1714,  and  merely  amplified  by  that  of  1724,  and 
some  measures  taken,  in  17 16,  to  remedy  the  slowness  of 
criminal  procedure,  and  clear  the  prisons,  he  made  no  attempt 
at  any  general  reform,  till  17 18.  His  attention  being  then 
attracted  in  that  direction,  he  endeavoured,  as  usual,  to  do 
evcr)'lhing  at  once,  and  put  matters  on  a  European  foot- 
ing in  a  moment.  He  turned  once  more  to  Swedish  models, 
and  caused  a  mass  of  documents  to  be  copied  at  Stockholm, 
for  his   information.      He    deprived    the    Vo'ievodcs  of  their 

'  S()Ioviof,  vol.  xvi.  p.  254. 

'^  .See  Nil  I'Dpof,   'ratiihtiluf  and  his  Times,  p.  25. 


494  PETER  THE  GREAT 

judicial  powers,  established  inferior  courts  of  two  classes  in 
the  provinces,  and  instituted  Courts  of  Apj:)eal  in  the  capital, 
and  in  the  more  important  towns. 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  Reformer  made  a  considerable 
effort  and  showed  an  admirable  sense  of  his  own  duty.  A 
complainant  applied  to  him,  he  refused  to  hear  him,  or  to 
receive  his  written  recjuest.  The  man  said,  '  My  complaint 
is  at^ainst  you.'  The  Sovereii^n  received  it,  submitted  the 
matter  to  the  Senate,  and  paid,  without  a  murmur,  the 
damages  to  which  he  was  condemned.^  Some  of  his  ideas 
were  excellent, — such  as  the  Ukase  of  1716,  forbidding  the 
torture  of  women  about  to  become  mothers  (excepting,  we 
are  forced  to  admit,  in  the  case  of  inquiries  '  affecting  the 
safety  of  the  State'),  and  the  abolition  of  the  barbarous 
custom  of  the  Pravieje,  in  17 18.  But  the  general  result 
was  far  from  satisfactory.  After  Shafirof's  trial  in  1723, 
there  appeared  on  the  judge's  table  in  every  court  in  the 
Empire,  a  strange  three-sided  erection  of  gilded  wood, 
crowned  with  a  double  eagle,  which  has  remained  there  till 
this  day.  On  this,  Peter  caused  to  be  inscribed  the  text 
of  three  edicts,  simultaneously  published  at  that  period,  which 
are  really  nothing  but  a  violent  diatribe  against  the  behaviour 
of  the  judges,— against  magistrates,  whose  sole  object  was  to 
hide  themselves  under  the  mantle  of  justice,  and  so  to  violate 
its  laws  by  twisting  their  meaning  in  a  way 'unknown  in 
other  countries,' — against  those  who  professed  not  to  know 
or  understand  the  laws  they  were  charged  to  administer. — 
and  those  who,  like  Shafirof,  ventured  to  censure,  and  openly 
disobey,  the  laws  they  represented. 

There  were  two  obstacles  to  the  realisation  of  any  imme- 
diate progress  in  judicial  matters.  The  first,  and  the 
greatest,  was  the  absolute  impossibility  of  giving  any  idea 
of  law  its  proper  value,  in  the  midst  of  surroundings  which 
were  a  negation  of  all  law.  One  of  Peters  greatest  merits 
certainly  was,  that  he  freed  this  idea  from  the  clouds  of 
savagery  and  brutality  which  darkened  it,  in  his  subjects' 
eyes.  lie  was  the  first  person  to  draw  attention  to 
a  principlej  in  certain  rcsi)ccts  independent  of,  and 
superior  to,  the  S(jvcreign's  (jwn  will.  Once  the  law  was 
established,  every  soul,  beginning  with  the  Tsar  himself, 
ouctl  il  iibcdiiiiLC.     Peter  .set  the  example.     JUlt,  unlia|Ji)il)-, 

'   Tojiuf,   'J'alii/ililic/ aitil  his  'J'iiiics,  j).  17. 


THE  POLITICAL  WORK  OF  PETER  THE  GREAT       495 

he  had  hardly  won  this  victory  over  a  condition  of  barbarism, 
before  he  compromised  its  benefits,  and  diminished  its  scope, 
by  the  exercise  and  abuse  of  a  power  he  himself  forgot  to 
control.  He  did  indeed  bow  before  the  law,  but  the  law 
was  only  his  personal  will,  expressed  in  a  Ukase — it  was 
often  arbitrary,  and  always  changeable.  A  great  poet,  whose 
desire  to  do  all  honour  to  the  glory  of  the  national  hero  has 
transformed  him  into  a  historian,  has  claimed  to  discover  a 
characteristic  difference  between  Peter's  institutions  and  his 
edicts.  The  first,  he  believes,  emanated  from  a  far-reaching 
and  wise  intelligence.  The  second  were  the  dictates  of 
caprice,  often  a  cruel  one,  and  were  'written,  as  it  were, 
with  the  knout.'  The  first,  designed  to  last  eternally,  or,  at 
all  events,  for  a  very  prolonged  period  ;  the  second,  the 
momentary  whim,  as  one  might  think,  'of  an  impatient 
and  despotic  provincial  proprietor.'  ^  This  remark  does  not 
strike  us  as  being  absolutely  correct,  when  we  glance  at  the 
history  of  Peter's  institutions,  which  he  himself  made,  and 
unmade,  and  remade,  over  and  over  again.  None  of  his  legis- 
lative acts  bear  any  sign  of  eternal  duration.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  he  always  desired  to  do  the  best  he  could.  The 
care  invariably  taken  to  explain,  and  with  some  prolixity, 
the  motive  of  each  decision,  and  in  what  points  it  will  be 
superior  to  the  previous  state  of  things,  is  a  very  noticeable 
feature.  Traces  of  this  didactic  method  appear,  even  at  the 
present  day,  in  Russian  legislation.  But  the  '  best '  is  only 
what,  at  a  given  moment,  appears  best  to  him.  All 
through  his  legislation,  it  should  be  noted,  there  is  a  radical 
separation  between  his  idea  of  the  law,  and  any  conception 
of  legal  morality.  The  law,  in  the  Tsar's  eyes,  was  not  what 
zvas  jHst,  but  what  ought,  or  ought  not,  to  be  done — for 
reasons  very  frequently  quite  removed  from  moral  ethics. 
The  guilty  man,  who  ought  to  be  punished,  was  not  the  man 
who  did  a  bad  action,  but  simply  the  man  who  acted  m  con- 
travcntio)i  to  the  text  of  the  Tsars  ukase.  The  very  manner  in 
which  the  penalties  of  the  law  were  applied  throws  a  curious 
Kght  on  this  subject.  In  January  1724,  a  French  artisan,  of 
the  name  of  Guillaume  Belin,  was  condemned  to  the  galleys 
lor  murder.  His  sentence  was  commuted,  and  he  was  sent 
to  the  naval  dock)-ards  to  ply  his  trade — that  of  a  lock- 
smith— and   teach  it   to   the   native   workmen.      The  wIujIc 

'   I'uiibhkiii,   Works,  vul.  iv.  p.  327. 


496  PETER  THE  GREAT 

judicial  spirit  of  the  period  revolved  between  two  poles,  des- 
jDotism  and  utilitarianism.'  Occasionally,  the  punishment  to 
which  tlic  culprit  was  sentenced  was  replaced  by  his  admis- 
sion into  the  Orthodox  Church,  and  Ba{:)tism  was  substituted 
for  the  knout !  - 

1  come  to  the  second  obstacle.  Peter  made  many  laws, 
but  their  abundance,  and  their  incessant  production,  made  it 
impossible  to  gather  them  into  a  Code.  The  earliest  Russian 
Code,  Ivan  Vassilevitch's  Soudichnik  (1542),  contains  little 
more  than  directions  for  judicial  combats,  to  take  the 
place  of  more  direct  proofs.  The  Oulojaiic  of  Alexis 
(1650),  was  for  the  most  part,  a  manual  of  practical 
jurisprudence.  In  1695,  under  the  twin  rule  of  Ivan  and 
Peter,  the  need  of  a  fresh  codification  made  itself  felt,  and 
the  Administrative  Offices  {Prikas)  were  ordered,  by 
ukase,  to  prepare  the  necessary  elements.  This  work,  it 
may  be  concluded,  was  not  very  zealously  proceeded  with, 
for  it  was  made  over,  in  1700,  to  the  Council  of  Jio)-ards. 
This  Council  addressed  a  request  to  the  Prikaz  for  the 
necessary  information,  and  did  nothing  further.  It  soon 
passed  out  of  existence,  and  Peter  himself,  for  successive 
years,  had  many  other  things  to  think  (jT.  It  was  not  till 
1714  that  the  idea  of  codification  re-occurred  to  him,  and  this 
time,  naturally,  the  work  was  confided  to  the  Senate.  The 
Senate  began  as  the  Council  had  begun.  The  Prikaz,  as 
in  1700,  did  nothing  at  all,  and  the  business  came  to  a  stand- 
still. 

There  was  a  fair  excuse  for  all  this  non-accomplishment. 
How  could  any  Code  be  drawn  up  while  the  publication  of 
laws  flowed  on  unceasingly,  so  that  the  conditions  of  the 
problem  were  undergoing  constant  change?  Everything 
altered  from  day  to  day.  One  wave  carried  away  what  the 
last  had  cast  up.  In  17 19,  the  Reformer  was  fain  to  have 
recourse  to  one  of  those  heroic  methods  which  so  specially 
attracted  him.  Instead  of  codifying  existing  laws,  why  not  u.se 
one  already  in  existence  ?  His  mind  had  been  haunted,  during 
the  preceding  )'ear,  by  the  idea  of  a  judicial  antholog)',  in 
which  Danish  and  Swedish  laws  were  to  appear  side  by  side 
with  a  selection  from  indigenous  Russian  legislation.  lie 
was  now  inclined  to  take  a  shorter  cut,  and  simply  to  adopt 

'  Filippof,   Peter  the  Creates   Reform  and  the  /\iia/  Code  (Moscow,  iJiy5), 
pp.  156,  249.  -  I/>id.  p.  255. 


THE  POLITICAL  WORK  OF  PETER  THE  GREAT       497 

the  Swedish  Code,  from  which  he  proposed  to  eHminate  all 
provisions  unsuitable  to  his  own  country,  substituting  others 
borrowed  from  the  Oiilojmie  of  1650.  In  1720,  the  Senate 
nominated  a  special  Commission  for  the  execution  of  this 
programme,  and  associated  certain  foreign  jurists  with  its 
labours.  But  these  only  resulted,  some  time  in  the  following 
year,  in  the  solemn  recognition  of  the  absolute  inappropri- 
ateness  of  the  Swedish  Code  to  Russian  needs.  Meanwhile, 
the  tide  of  Ukases  rose  yet  higher  and  higher. 

In  1724,  Peter,  in  spite  of  his  constitutional  stubbornness, 
seems  to  have  abandoned  all  idea  of  fresh  attempts  in  this 
direction,  and  a  Ukase,  dated  March  nth,  decreed  that  in 
default  of  any  other  Code,  all  future  laws  were  to  be  added 
to  the  Oiilojciiie  of  1650.  He  can  hardly  be  personally 
blamed  for  this  failure.  To  attain  complete  success,  two 
things  were  needful,  and  both  failed  him.  The  true  judicial 
idea  had  not  sufficiently  established  itself  in  the  mind  and 
conscience  of  even  a  small  and  select  number  of  his  subjects, 
and  he  had  no  jurists  capable  of  seconding  his  efforts.  The 
political  and  social  edifice,  thus  hastily  raised,  was  to  make 
but  a  poor  show,  in  this  respect,  for  many  a  year  to  come. 
It  reminds  us  of  an  old  wall  roughly  whitewashed,  with  its 
cracks,  and  moss,  and  fungi  showing  through  the  thin  coat 
of  plaster.  The  whole  fabric,  indeed,  had  something  of  this 
quality.  The  work  of  ten  centuries  cannot  be  performed  in 
twenty  years,  even  though  the  builder  work  with  fire  and 
sword. 


C  II  A  P  T  E  R     VII 

THE   ARMY    AND    THE    NAVV 

1.  Tlic  Army — Precedents — Peter  only  luuried  tlie  movement  fDrward — Stranj^e 
l)eginnint;s — 'The  Pleasure  Kes^inients  ' — (Jood  and  liad  <|iialilies  of  llie 
new  fi)rniations— Spirit  and  substance — Narva— On  the  riyhl  road— The 
moral  element. 
II.  The  Navy  — I'recedents — The  hasty  and  intemperate  nature  of  this  new 
undertakini^ — The  fighting  Navy,  and  the  Merclianl  Navy  —  iJouble 
failure — What  remained  of  the  work  after  the  Tsar's  death. 


Peter  did  not  endow  Russia  with  a  good  financial  system, 
but  he  gave  her  a  military  organisation,  the  value  of  which 
has  been  am[)ly  proved,  and  which  forms  one  of  the  Re- 
former's most  undoubted  claims  to  glory.  Yet,  even  on  this 
licad,  his  work  was  not  the  absolute  personal  creation  it  is 
frequently  described  as  being,  and  it  is  open  to  criticism  in 
various  respects.  I  shall  not  enter  on  a  discussion  for  which  I 
do  not  feel  myself  competent,  but  shall  confine  myself  to  a 
short  statement  of  the  most  striking  features  of  the  subject, 
and  the  most  authoritative  opinions  on  it. 

The  great  Tsar's  predecessors  may  fairl}'  be  said  to  have 
had  200,000  armed  men,  and  not  a  single  soldier.  The 
army,  picturesque  as  it  was,  was  anything  but  military. 
Knights  of  the  Middle  Ages,  clad  from  head  to  foot  in 
mail,  rode  beside  horsemen  mounted  on  miserable  bare- 
backed jades,  armed  with  sticks,  and  provisioned  with  a 
bag  of  rye  cast  over  their  shoulders.  These  heterogeneous 
war-band.s  were  not  regularly  recruited  ;  they  were  a  mere 
collection  of  armed  men,  belonging  to  one  class  onl}-,  that  of 
the  landed  proj^rietors.  There  was  no  preparation,  lU)  train- 
ing in  the  art  of  war.  Militar)-  drill,  in  limes  of  peace,  was 
uUerl)' unknown.      There  were  no  organised  connnands  ;   the 


THE  ARMY  AND  THE  NAVY  499 

leadership  of  the  troops  belonjTcd,  as  a  right,  to  the  chiefs  of 
the  local  aristocracy — the  Boyards  and  the  Okohiitcliyie. 
There  was  no  commissariat.  The  men  equipped  and  fed 
themselves  as  they  chose,  and  as  best  they  could.  And 
finally,  the  army,  being  almost  exclusively  composed  of 
cavalry,  could  not  fulfil  the  needs  of  modern  warfare. 

But  this  state  of  things  did  not  continue  unmodified  until 
Peter's  accession.  Even  in  the  sixteenth  century  the  Tsar 
Feodor  Ivanovitch  (i 584-1 598)  had  some  regular  troops, 
drilled  and  equipped  in  European  fashion.  Two  foreign 
officers  in  his  service,  Margeret,  a  Frenchman,  and  Von 
Rosen,  a  Livonian,  commanded  a  body  of  2,500  men,  most 
of  them  Poles  and  Livonians,  but  with  a  few  Scotchmen, 
Danes,  Swedes,  Frenchmen,  Greeks,  and  subjects  of  the 
Emperor.^  Peter's  immediate  predecessors,  Alexis  and 
Feodor  Alexieievitch,  went  yet  further.  They  left  behind 
them  a  first  attempt  at  a  general  reform,  on  democratic  lines, 
of  the  command,  recruiting,  and  organisation  of  the  army. 
A  commission  established  in  168 1,  under  the  presidency  of 
Prince  Vassili  Galitzin,  suggested  that  the  principle  of  indi- 
vidual capacity  should  be  considered  in  the  selection  of 
military  chiefs.  At  the  same  time,  the  personal  service  of 
landed  proprietors  was  replaced  by  recruits  {Datotsfnijlc) 
supplied  by  them  in  proportion  to  the  extent  of  their  pro- 
perties ;  and,  finally,  permanent  bodies  of  regular  troops, 
foreign  and  even  native,  including  some  regiments  of  infantry, 
came  into  existence. 

Peter's  personal  work  was  limited  to  a  somewhat  un- 
methodical, and,  in  the  early  days  at  least,  a  yet  more  whim- 
sical development,  of  these  resources.  On  30th  January 
1683,  Sergius  Bouhvostof,  a  Court  groom  attached  to  the 
'  pleasure  stables,'  was  enrolled  in  the  military  '  pleasure 
service,'  which  the  young  Tsar  had  taken  it  into  his  head  to 
institute.  This  man  was  to  be  the  first  soldier  of  the  Preo- 
brajenski  regiment.  Other  koniou/iywQYQ  successivelyenrolled, 
and  these  were  followed  by  young  men  belonging  to  the 
noble  families  opposed  to  Sophia's  rule.  In  1684,  there  were 
300  volunteers,  and  the  germs  of  a  military  establishment  at 
PrcobrajenskoTe.  In  the  following  year  Peter  ventured  to 
beat  up  recruits  openly.  The  number  soon  rose  to  1000,  and 
a  second  depot  was  created  at  Siemionof,  from  which  place 

^  Oustrialof,  %-ol.  i.  p.  179. 


500  PETER  THE  GREAT 

a  second  regiment  of  the  Guard  took  its  name.  In  1690  and 
1691,  the  Tsar  held  the  first  manoeuvres  of  these  troops; 
these  were  called  the  '  Siemionof  Campaign.'  In  1692,  the 
'pleasure  regiments'  were  definitely  organised,  and  Peter 
took  the  rank  of  a  sergeant  in  the  Preobrajenski,  During 
1694,  in  another  series  of  manoeuvres,  known  as  the  '  Kojouhof 
Campaign,'  they  figured  as  regularly  constituted  tactical 
units,  and  lost  the  name  and  quality  of  'pleasure  regiments.' 
The  time  for  playing  at  soldiers  had  gone  by,  and  Peter  was 
preparing  for  serious  work.  That  same  year  a  company 
of  bombardiers  was  formed,  in  which  the  Tsar  himself  figured, 
under  the  name  of  Peter  Alexcief. 

This  was  the  nucleus  of  the  future  army,  which,  from  that 
period,  was  to  have  nothing  in  common,  whether  as,  to  com- 
position, discipline,  or  instruction,  with  the  old  rat\  or  war- 
bands  of  various  arms.  The  only  old  regiments  sharing,  to 
a  certain  extent,  in  the  new  organisation,  were  Lefort's, — 
one  of  comparatively  recent  formation, — and  the  Bout\'rski 
regiment,  which  had  been  raised  in  1642,  under  Michael 
Feodorovitch. 

The  relative  superiority  of  these  troops  was  proved  under 
the  walls  of  Azof,  in  1695  (see  p.  yj),  but  Peter  did  nothing 
to  extend  their  organisation,  and  make  it  general,  until  1699. 
All  he  did  was  to  destroy  the  Stnitsy, — thereby  wiping  out 
the  old  army,  without  putting  a  new  one  in  its  place.  It 
was  the  Swedish  war  which  finally  called  forth  the  great 
Tsar's  creative  activity.  Then  there  was  an  explosion,  a 
tremendous  rush,  of  ideas  and  new  efforts,  which  seemed  to 
defy  time,  space,  reason,  and  substance.  Many  of  his  notions 
were  original,  all  his  efforts  were  bold  and  energetic.  To 
begin  with,  he  gave  up  the  system  of  enrolment  as  then 
practised  in  most  European  armies.  He  adopted  a  method 
of  recruiting  which  only  differed  from  the  compulsory  service 
of  the  present  day,  by  being  collective  instead  of  individual. 
This  difference  was,  indeed,  -a  fundamental  error.  The 
necessity  enforced  on  socict}-  f)f  furnishing  a  proportionate 
number  of  recruits,  carried  with  it  the  fatal  practice  of  substi- 
tution, of  buying  off  individual  service,  and  of  hiring  by 
contract.  To  this  Peter  added  service  for  life,  which  was  in 
direct  contradiction  with  his  own  principle  of  equality — for 
the  whole  nation  could  not  possibly  serve  in  an  army,  the 
ranks  of  which  were  only  cleared  by  death, — which  separated 


THE  ARMY  AND  THE  NAVY  501 

the  army  from  the  general  population,  and  made  it  a  class 
apart,  and  which  inevitably  filled  the  regiments  with  men 
who  were  unfit  for  active  service.  His  whole  conception, 
though  in  advance,  in  certain  respects,  of  the  usual  European 
idea,  lacked  proper  balance.  And,  to  begin  with,  it  was  a 
purely  material  creation.  It  did  not  possess  the  spirit  which 
is  the  real  strength  of  Western  military  institutions.  This 
was  soon  to  be  proved  at  the  siege  of  Narva.  Peter  there 
brought  32,000'regular  troops  into  action,  but  the  Preobra- 
jcnski  and  Sicmionovski  regiments  alone  made  any  stand, 
and  even  these,  so  Possoshkof  declares,  fired  twenty  volleys 
without  killing  a  single  man. 

This  second  experience  convinced  the  young  sovereign  at 
last  of  the  value  of  that  moral  element  which  he  had  hitherto 
completely  overlooked,  and  thus  set  him  on  the  right  path. 
In  future,  without  neglecting  other  elements  of  effective 
strength,  his  constant  care  was  to  form  the  spirit  of  his 
soldiers  ;  and  this  is  a  greater  title  to  glory  than  all  his 
cannon  foundries  and  powder  factories  at  Ohta,  Toula,  and 
St.  Petersburg,  than  his  School  of  Military  Engineering  at 
Moscow,  and  even  than  the  earliest  known  attempt  at  raising 
a  body  of  horse-artillery,  which  has  been  generally  ascribed 
to  him.  By  the  end  of  his  reign,  his  regular  army  consisted 
of  40  infantry  and  33  dragoon  regiments,  57,956  foot  soldiers, 
and  36,333  cavalry, without  reckoning  his  irregular  troops,-Cos- 
sacks,  Kalmuks,  and  so  forth.  But  imposing  as  these  numbers 
were,  the  sum-total  of  his  armies  is  a  matter  of  secondary 
importance  ;  the  great  value  of  his  work  lies  in  the  wonderful 
spirit  he  breathed  into  his  men.  The  Russian  soldier  was 
transformed,  by  him,  out  of  a  simple,  half-conscious  brute, 
into  a  thinking  being,  ruled,  whatever  his  detractors  may  say, 
by  other  motives  than  the  fear  of  punishment.  An  ideal  has 
been  set  before  him,  and  he  follows  it.  Such  active  courage, 
and  intelligent  daring,  cannot  be  beaten  into  men  with  blows. 
I  will  point  out  one  feature  in  refutation  of  certain  opinions 
on  this  subject,  which  strike  me  as  having  been  too  lightly 
adopted.  At  the  very  moment  when  the  war  of  the  Spanish 
Succession  was  considered,  in  the  West,  to  have  absolutely 
proved  the  superiority  of  mechanical  order  in  battle  forma- 
tion, Peter  was  putting  forward  the  principle  of  the  inde- 
pendent organic  action  of  tactical  units.  This  spirit  is 
breathed    in   all    his  military    instructions    and    regulations, 


503  PETER  THE  GREAT 

which  prove  his  desire  to  develop  and  cultivate  the  personal 
initiative  of  his  fifj^htin^;  men.^ 

His  military  Ici^islation,  carefully  studied  as  it  was,  and 
for  a  wonder,  successfully  codified,  does  not  alwaj-s  deserve 
the  same  praise.  Its  disciplinary  and  penal  provisions  are 
quite  absurd.  They  are  in  direct  opposition  to  the  principles 
adopted  for  the  ort^anisation  and  education  of  his  armed 
forces.  It  has  been  asserted,  in  his  defence,  that  the  severity 
of  his  measures,  and  the  barbarity  of  his  methods  of  repres- 
sion,— the  stake,  the  g^allows,  the  quartering  of  culprits,  and 
the  cutting-off  of  tlieir  noses  and  their  ears, — was  a  mere 
imitation  of  foreign  mcxlcls,  more  esi)ecially  of  the  French 
code,  with  certain  merciful  modifications  of  their  severity.'^ 
But  this  plea  is  not  convincing,  because  it  overlooks  the 
difference  which  Peter's  military  reform  permitted  to  exist," 
— which  it  even  sanctioned  and  developed, — between  the 
composition  of  the  Russian  army,  and  those  of  Western 
countries.  The  Russian  soldier  of  Peter's  time  was  not,  in 
principle  at  all  events,  a  recruit,  in  the  French  or  German 
sense.  He  was  not  drawn,  as  too  often  happened  in  other 
countries,  from  the  very  dregs  of  the  population  ;  he  was 
rather,  in  principle  at  all  events,  the  representative  of  what 
was  best  in  his  class,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  did, 
generally  speaking,  represent  a  decidedly  superior  element. 
But  this  was  what  Peter  himself  completely  overlooked,  and 
therefore  it  was  that  he  succeeded  in  arousing  a  general  desire 
for  flight,  as  is  eloquently  proved  by  his  numerous  ukases 
with  respect  to  the  nictshiks  (refractory  recruits),  who  were 
unable  to  endure  a  military  service  which  had  become  a 
pitiless  and  ignominious  servitude.^ 

On  the  other  hand,  all  the  Tsar's  energy  and  knowledge 
could  not  triumph  over  certain  causes  of  inferiority,  which, 
even  to  a  quite  recent  date,  have  seemed  to  threaten  the 
success  of  the  Russian  arms — I  refer  to  defects  of  admini- 
stration, and  the  incapacity  of  persons  in  high  command. 
This  experience  throws  light,  as  I  think,  on  another  ditTcr- 
ence, — that  which,  though  frequently  denied,  certainly  exists 

*  Maslovski,  The  Russian  Annies  in  the  Time  of  Peter  the  C/vfrt/ (Moscow, 
1883),  p.  47. 

■^  Kohrcjv.ski,  Alilitary  Law  in  Western  F.urope  at  the  Time  of  the  Constitution 
of  Standin!^  Armies  (Moscdw,  1SS2),  p.  462. 

=*  Rosenheim,  Prdcis  of  the  History  of  Russian  Military  Institutions,  1S78, 
p.  215. 


THE  ARMY  AND  THE  NAVY  503 

between  the  natural  and,  so  to  speak,  instinctive  qualities 
and  virtues  of  the  human  race,  and  those  others  which  can 
only  be  produced  by  long  and  laborious  culture.  P.cter  was 
powerless,  in  face  of  the  eternal  laws  of  the  intellectual  and 
moral  world.  Courage  and  even  Jionour  are  elementary 
phenomena,  and  may  appear  under  conditions  of  savagery. 
It  is  quite  otherwise  with  knowledge  and  integrity. 
Ancient  Muscovy  was  not  a  warlike  country.  The  Dukes 
of  Moscow  won  their  victories  over  the  Tartars  by 
means  of  their  patient  and  cunning  policy.  Modern  Russia 
could  not  become  a  nation  of  heroic  warriors  again,  at  one 
bound.  Peter  found,  just  below  the  surface  of  the  national 
character,  the  necessary  instincts  for  this  transformation, — a 
return  to  the  distant  traditions  of  the  Norman  period. 
Further  he  could  not  go,  but,  when  he  gave  his  country 
the  army  of  Poltava,  he  forged  a  wonderful  instrument  of 
material  power  and  moral  progress.  That  army  has  made 
■:he  greatness  of  contemporary  Russia. 


II 

In  considering  the  Navy  created  during  the  great  reign, 
whether  for  mercantile  or  fighting  purposes,  I  shall  venture 
to  be  more  critical.  I  am  inclined  to  regard  the  haste  and 
excess  of  its  production  as  the  result  of  an  atavic  instinct, 
which,  when  we  consider  the  local  circumstances,  would 
appear  to  have  developed  into  a  mania,  and  become  the 
wild  caprice  of  a  despot.  Precedents,  for  such  there  had 
been,  should  have  warned  Peter  not  to  allow  himself  to  be 
carried  away  by  his  imagination.  In  the  reign  of  Michael 
h'eodorovitch,  certain  Holstein  merchants  begged  permission 
to  build  vessels  at  Nijni  Novgorod,  and  to  utilise  the  waters 
of  the  Volga  for  their  trade  with  Persia.  In  later  years, 
Alexis  Miha'ilovitch  himself  began  building  ships  at  Diedinof, 
at  the  confluence  of  the  Moskva  and  the  Oka.  All  these 
attempts  ended  in  failure  ;  some  of  the  Dutch  ships  were 
lost  in  the  Caspian,  others  were  taken  and  burnt  by  Stenka 
Ra/in  at  Astrakhan.^  The  very  nature  of  things,  in  this 
country  without  a  seaboard,  seems  to  have  protested  against 
the  violence  done  her. 

'  Vi^ssielago,  Precis  of  a  History  of  the  Russian  Navy,  vol    i.  p.  5,  etc. 
33 


504  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Peter  ran  a  yet  c^rcatcr  risk  for  himself,  and  for  his  Empire, 
when  he  ventured  on  the  storm)' waters  of  the  White  Sea  in 
a  hastily  constructed  yacht,  built  in  his  improvised  shipyards 
at  Archangel.  Aided  by  Dutch  ship-builders,  he  contrived, 
as  early  as  1694,  to  possess  three  vessels,  intended  to  do 
double  dut}', — armed  for  war,  and  fitted  for  commerce, — a 
type  imposed  on  these  first  attempts,  by  the  fear  of  pirates, 
and  which  was  long  continued  in  the  naval  architecture  of 
the  country.  But  this  squadron  was  nothing  but  a  toy,  and 
the  young  Sovereign  was  so  fully  conscious  of  the  fact,  that, 
in  1695,  '""c  suddenly  turned  his  back  on  his  Northern  port, 
and  all  the  work  he  had  made  himself  there,  just  as  he 
might  have  turned  his  back  on  any  pleasure  j^arty.  He 
came  back  to  the  fresh  waters  of  the  laouza,  where  his  first 
attempts  at  navigation  had  been  made.  He  was  bent  on 
preparing  the  elements  of  a  flotilla,  built  on  the  model  of  a 
Dutch  galley,  brought  there  piecemeal,  on  sledges, — which 
flotilla  he  proposed  to  transport  by  land  to  Voroneje,  whence 
it  was  to  proceed  down  the  Don,  and  take  part  in  the  siege 
of  Azof.i 

The  doubtful  success  of  this  fresh  attempt  has  already 
been  described.  In  the  following  year,  the  war  flotilla  took 
its  place  amongst  the  young  Tsar's  cast-off  toys.  Peter's 
chief  desire  then  became,  to  possess  a  merchant  nav\',  and, 
faithful  to  his  usual  manner  of  conception  and  procedure,  he 
deemed  it  possible  to  bring  one  into  existence,  by  merely 
embodying  his  will  in  a  decree,  and  using  authoritative 
methods.  He  called  his  council  together  at  PreobrajenskoTfe, 
on  the  4th  of  November,  and  ordered  all  owners,  lay  or 
ecclesiastic,  of  100  houses  and  more,  to  form  themselves 
into  companies,  for  the  the  construction  of  merchant  vessels. 
The  Archimandrites  who  held  domains  under  the  abbeys, 
were  not  to  be  excused,  and  the  Patriarch  was  called  on  to 
supply  two  frigates,  of  fifty  guns  each  !  The  number  of 
ships  to  be  fitted  out  was  definitely  fixed  ;  there  were  to  be 
ninety,  and  the  State  undertook  to  build  eighty  more. 
Their  design  and  equipment  was  formally  regulated,  and 
they  were  all  to  be  finished  within  two  years, — under  pain 
of  death  to  the  laggards !  The  order  was  obeyed  ;  every- 
thing was  ready  on  the  appointed  da)%  but,  on  20th  April 
1700,  a  fresh  Ukase  decreed  the  suppression  of  the  companies 

'  Tsvielaicf,  The  Creation  of  the  Russian  Fleet ,  1696,  p.  12. 


THE  ARMY  AND  THE  NAVY  505 

which  had  so  obediently  organised  themselves,  and  built  a 
fleet  they  evidently  could  not  learn  how  to  use.^ 

All  this  expenditure  of  time,  and  energy,  and  money,  only 
resulted  in  a  naval  demonstration,  which,  it  must  be  acknow- 
ledged, had  a  certain  value  of  its  own.  In  August  1699,  a 
Russian  ship  sailed  across  the  Black  Sea,  and  cast  anchor 
before  Constantinople.  The  action  was  purely  pacific,  and 
the  vessel  brought  the  Tsar's  two  plenipotentiaries,  who  were 
charged  to  negotiate  a  definite  treaty.  But  the  Turks  offered 
vehement  opposition.  Everything  they  could  think  of  was 
brought  into  play — diplomatic  arguments,  entreaties,  and 
even  threats.  But  Peter  stood  firm,  and  this  demon- 
strative character  has  never  left  the  Russian  navy.  It  has 
always  been  used  with  a  special  view  to  moral  effect,  and 
thus  its  best  service  has  been  done.  As  for  the  flotilla  which 
was  shut  up  at  Voroneje,  because  there  was  not  enough  water 
to  float  it  down  the  Don,  it  proved  of  no  service  when  hos- 
tilities with  Turkey  recommenced  in  171 1.  The  surrender 
of  Azof  to  the  Turks  deprived  Peter  of  all  future  hope  of 
using  it.  Part  of  it  was  made  over  to  the  Porte,  and  the 
rest  was  left  to  rot. 

The  Northern  fleet,  called  into  existence  by  the  necessities 
of  the  Swedish  war,  was  a  more  serious  undertaking.  There 
was  something  heroic  about  its  beginnings.  Two  Russian 
sailors,  who  had  been  seized  by  the  Swedes,  and  forced  to 
pilot  them  during  an  attack  on  Archangel,  in  June  1701,  ran 
the  enemy's  ships  under  the  guns  of  the  Fort,  where  they 
were  stranded  and  captured.  They  themselves  were 
wounded,  counterfeited  death,  and  contrived  to  escape. 
Then  came  several  victorious  fights  on  the  Lake  of  Ladoga, 
of  which  the  Russians  retained  possession.  In  1703,  after 
the  conquest  of  the  Mouth  of  the  Neva,  a  ship-building  yard 
was  established  at  Olonets,  at  the  confluence  of  the  Megrega 
and  the  Olonka.  The  next  year,  the  St.  Petersburg  Ad- 
miralty had  come  into  existence,  and  the  young  Baltic  fleet 
carried  troops  and  provisions  to  the  sieges  of  Uerpt  and 
Narva.  In  1705,  it  repulsed  a  Swedish  attack  on  the  Island 
of  Kotlin  ;  in  1706,  it  captured  a  large  Swedish  vessel,  the 
'  P2sj)crn,'  under  the  walls  of  Viborg.  and,  in  17 10,  it  played 
a  part  in  the  capture  of  that  town.  But  Sweden  was  mistress 
of  the  Gulf  of  Finland,  and  blockaded  all  the  Baltic  shores. 

1  Viessielago,  vol.  i.  p.  13,  etc. 


5o6  PETER  THE  GREAT 

The  mere  numerical  su|ien'()rity  of  her  fleet  sufficed  to  ensure 
her  this  advanla.L^^e.  Peter  had  indeed  boasted,  when  he  met 
Augustus  at  Birze,  that  he  possessed  eii^hty  ships,  of  sixty 
and  eij^ht)'  i^uns  each — one  of  which,  built  on  his  own  de- 
signs, was  to  be  called  the  '  Divine  Foresight.'  The  prow  of 
this  ship  was  to  be  adorned  with  a  figure  of  St.  Peter,  sur- 
mounting an  allegorical  representation,  also  of  the  young 
Tsar's  design,  of  a  boat  manned  b)'  children.^  The  plans  and 
drawings  had,  doubtless,  been  distributed,  but  the  squadron 
with  which  he  made  his  victorious  attack  on  Ilelsingfors  and 
Rorga,  ten  years  later,  only  reckoned  seven  ships  of  the  line 
and  four  frigates,  three  of  which  ships,  and  two  frigates,  had 
been  bought  abroad. 

This  same  squadron,  escorting  a  flotilla  of  two  hundred 
galleys  and  small  craft,  figures  in  the  first  naval  victory  of 
any  importance  of  which  Russian  annals  can  boast.  This 
took  place  at  Hango-Udde,  where  the  Swedish  Admiral 
Erenskold  handed  his  sword  to  Peter  Mi/iailof,  on  the  25th 
of  July  17 14.  The  same  squadron  ravaged  the  coast  of 
Sweden  in  17 19,  and  largely  contributed,  by  the  assistance  it 
rendered  to  the  descent  of  Admiral  Lascy  on  the  Swedish 
shore  in  172 1,  to  the  conclusion  of  the  I'eace  of  Nystadt. 
V>wt  the  success  of  these  operations,  which,  for  the  most  part, 
were  demonstrations,  was  secured  by  the  number  and  excel- 
lence of  the  land  forces  on  board  the  ships.  Thus,  in  17 19, 
Apraxin  had  27,000  infantry  under  his  command.  The 
battles  in  which  the  fleet  took  part  were  invariably  fought 
close  in  shore.  They  were  not  real  sea  fights,  and  suc- 
cess was  ensured,  in  every  case,  by  the  territorial  element, 
which  predominated. - 

To  sum  the  matter  up,  Peter,  whether  we  look  at  it  from 
the  fighting  or  the  commercial  point  of  view,  passionately 
and  unsuccessfully  endeavoured  to  make  his  Russians  a 
nation  of  sailors.  The  inhabitants  of  a  huge  continent, 
washed,  on  one  side,  by  most  inhosjjitable  seas,  can  hardly 
be  blamed  for  not  having  fallen  in  with  his  fancy.  Russia, 
even  to  this  present  day,  is,  commercially  speaking,  largely 
dependent  on  foreign  navies.  The  fighting  navy  of  the  Don, 
with  its  imitations  of  Dutch,  English,  and  Venetian  galleys, 
was  an  expensive  and  unfortunate  experiment.     The  neces- 

'  Solovief,  vol.  xiv.  p.  331. 

'^  Mychlaievski,  The  Finland  War,  1712-1714  (1S96). 


THE  ARMY  AND  THE  NAVY  507 

sity  for  reducing  the  draught  of  the  new  vessels  made  it 
impossible  to  reproduce  the  elementary  nautical  qualities  of 
the  foreign  models.  Thanks  to  their  less  unfavourable  local 
conditions,  and  to  the  experience  acquired  by  the  Sovereign, 
his  northern  dockyards  were  more  successful,  and  even 
caused  an  anxiety  in  England,  which  subsequent  events 
proved  to  be  somewhat  premature.^  Here,  as  elsewhere,  the 
exaggeration  and  precipitation,  which  were  the  cardinal 
faults  of  all  the  great  Tsar's  efforts,  diminished  their  suc- 
cess. His  timbers  were  too  green,  his  rigging  was  of  inferior 
quality,  his. sailors  were  ill-taught.  Leaks  and  broken  masts, 
unskilful  and  inferior  crews,  hurriedly  recruited,  and  fre- 
quently decimated  by  sickness,  constantly  appear  in  the 
annals  of  these  squadrons.  The  number  of  vessels  of  every 
kind — ships  of  the  line,  frigates  and  galleys — built  during 
Peter's  reign,  has  been  reckoned  at  something  near  a  thou- 
sand. In  1734,  nine  years  after  his  death,  when  their  co- 
operation was  needed  for  the  projected  blockade  of  Stettin, 
there  were  not  fifteen  fit  to  put  to  sea,  and  not  an  officer 
could  be  found  to  command  any  one  of  them.'' 

Peter  went  too  fast,  and,  above  all,  he  tried  to  go  too  far. 
It  would  have  been  a  good  thing  to  give  Russia  a  fleet;  it 
was  not  a  reasonable  thing  to  endeavour  to  turn  Russia  into  a 
second  Holland.  He  established  ship-building  yards  at  five- 
and-twenty  points,  many  of  them  in  the  very  centre  of  terra 
firnia,  and  abandoned  them,  one  after  the  other.^  He  replaced 
the  Department  of  Naval  Construction  at  Vladimir  by  the 
Department  of  the  Admiralty  at  Moscow,  and  each  of  these 
places  was  more  than  three  hundred  and  seventy-five  miles 
from  the  sea.  He  thus  gave  his  creation  an  artificial  char- 
acter, which  it  has  never  lost.  His  naval  enterprises,  which 
he  carried  to  St.  Petersburg  in  1712,  with  the  'Chancery  of 
the  War  Fleet,'  and  finally  concentrated  there,  in  1719,  at 
the  '  College  of  the  Admiralty,'  would  seem  to  have  been 
principally  destined  as  an  amusement  and  a  delusion  to  him- 
self. They  certainly  supplied  the  opposition  with  which  his 
whole  work  was  to  wrestle,  and  to  which  I  am  now  about  to 
refer,  in  concluding  this  work,  with  a  certain  amount  of 
cogent  argument,  if  not,  indeed,  with  any  actual  justification. 

'  Sbornik,  vol.  Ixi.  p.  563.  -  Vicssit'lago,  vol.  i.  pp.  54-70.         ^  Ibid. 


CHAPTER     VIII 

THE   Ori'OSITION — THE   TSAREVITCH    ALEXIS 


I.  Ct)llcctive  and  isolated  resistance — Plots  and  attacks— Nature  of  the  opposi- 
tion personified  liy  Alexis. 

II.  The  eilucation  of  the  'I'sarevilch — His  first  struggle  with  the  parental 
authority — Alexis  will  not  he  a  soldier — He  is  left  at  Moscow — Mutual 
sympathy — The  clergy  and  the  aristocracy — Idea  of  a  change  of  ruler — 
His  father  intervenes  again — Alexis  must  serve — A  had  recruit — The 
Tsarevitch  too  ill  to  he  present  at  the  Battle  of  Poltava — He  is  sent 
abroad  to  study  and  take  a  wife — Marriage— The  Princess  Charlotte — 
Honeymoon — An  early  disturbance  of  conjugal  harmony — Alexis  at  the 
head  of  a  jiarty — Charlotte's  death — Cathernie  bears  a  son — Disinherit- 
ance— Prince  or  monk — First  and  second  requisition. 

III.   A  legend— Charloite  alive — Her  adventures — An  explanation. 

l\'.  Final  rcijuisitiun — Peter  sends  for  his  son — The  Tsarevitch's  flight — The 
pursuit  —  The  Tsar's  bloodhounds  —  Vienna  —  Ehrenberg  —  Naples — 
Euphrosine  appears — The  treachery  of  the  mistress — Betrayal  of  Alexis — 
The  return. 
V.  Abdication — The  Moscow  inquiry— Alexis  gives  up  his  friends — Executions 
— Paternal  forgiveness — Plans  for  the  future— Marriage  with  Euphrosine 
— C(jnfidence  and  happiness. 

VI.  St.  Petersbnrg — Arrival  of  the  mistress — Cross-examination— A  witness  for 
the  prosecution  — A  fresh  inquiry — The  prince  is  arrested— Brought  into 
court — Torture— Confession  and  recantation — The  High  Court  of  Justice 
— The  sentence. 
VII.  Death — Various  versions — Probabilities — Material  reality  and  moral  respon- 
sibility— European  opinion — The  judgment  of  posterity — Voltaire — Before 
the  bar  of  History. 


The  great  Reformer's  work,  and  tlic  difficulties  with  which 
he  had  to  contend,  have  not  been  fairl)'  judged  even  b)'  his 
own  peers.  '  lie  worked  on  his  people,'  said  the  great 
Frederick,  not,  perhaps,  without  a  touch  of  jealousy,  'just  as 
aquafortis  bites  into  the  steel.'  This  cf>mparison  is  hardly 
just.  The  Russian  nation  did  not  preserve  a  passive  atti- 
tude under  the  r(jugh  and  sudden  attack  made  on  its  habits, 

608 


THE  OPPOSITION— THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       509 

its  sense  of  decorum,  and  its  inner  feelings, — an  attack  which 
more  resembled  blows  dealt  with  hammer  and  axe,  than  the 
slow  action  of  corrosive  fluid  on  the  metal  plate.  Peter,  in 
the  wildest  moments  of  his  rage  and  desire  to  punish,  often 
answered  violence  with  violence.  This  is  proved  by  the 
minutes  of  the  Pn'obrajensko'ie  Prikaz.  '  What  Tsar  is  this  ?' 
cried  a  prisoner  named  Vanka  Borliout,  who  was  put  to  the 
question,  in  1698,  'he  is  a  Turk  ;  he  eats  meat  on  Wednes- 
days and  Fridays,  and  eats  frogs  I  He  has  exiled  his  wife, 
and  lives  with  a  foreigner!'  'What  Tsar  is  thi:?.?'  Here, 
as  afterwards,  the  exclamation,  with  its  note  of  mingled 
astonishment  and  indignation,  was  the  cry  of  a  wounded  con- 
science. And  then  followed  the  argument,  *  It  is  not  possible 
that  this  man,  to  whom  none  of  those  things  which,  for 
centuries  past,  have  made  the  life  and  faith  of  Holy  Russia, 
appear  sacred,  can  be  born  of  a  Russian  man  and  woman  ! 
He  must  be  the  son  of  some  German, — the  son  of  Lefort 
and  of  a  German  woman  substituted  in  the  cradle  for  the 
child  of  Alexis  and  Nathalia  !  The  real  Peter  Alexieievitch 
remained  abroad  in  1697,  the  Niantsy  kept  him,  and  sent  an 
impostor  to  take  his  place.  Or  perhaps,  indeed,  this  may  be 
Antichrist!'^  In  1701,  a  writer  named  Talitski  was  con- 
demned to  death  for  having  lent  his  pen  to  the  support  of 
this  latter  supposition.  And,  in  later  years,  Stephen  lavorski 
wrote  a  book,  full  of  quotations  from  the  Apocalypse,  to 
demonstrate  the  falseness  of  the  idea.-  In  17 18,  a  foreigner, 
travelling  through  a  village  on  the  road  to  St.  Petersburg, 
noticed  a  crowd  of  three  or  four  hundred  men.  He  inquired 
of  a  pope  as  to  the  meaning  of  what  he  saw,  and  was  told, 
*  Our  fathers  and  our  brothers  have  no  beards  ;  our  altars  are 
left  unserved  ;  our  most  sacred  laws  are  violated  ;  and  we 
are  groaning  under  a  foreign  tyranny.'  What  he  saw  was 
the  beginning  of  an  insurrection/^ 

The  example  made  of  the  Streltsy  had,  indeed,  discouraged 
any  attempt  at  concerted  revolt,  but  individual  cases  of 
mutiny,  and  even  of  violent  resistance,  were  still  frequent,  and 
occasionally  took  a  very  simj^le  and  touching  form.  One 
poor  gentleman  brought  a  written  protest,  addressed  to  God 
Almighty,  into  the  church,  and  laid  it  before  the  holy  images, 

'  Kostomarof  in  Russian  Avtiquities,  1S75,  vol.  xii. 

^  Siemievski,  Slovo  i  Dielo,  \>.  107,  etc. 

*  La  Vie's despatch  from  St.  Pclersbiirj;,  Jan.  10.  171S  (French  Foreign  Office). 


5IO  PETER  THE  GREAT 

in  llic  presence  of  the  Tsar.^  But,  in  most  cases,  the  fanatical 
followers  of  the  Domostroi',  wounded  in  their  tenderest  jjoint, 
raised  an<^r\'  hands,  and  strove  to  render  blow  for  blow. 
Attem[)ts  on  the  person  of  the  Sovereij^n  occurred  almostexery 
year.  In  1718,  La  Vie  refers  to  the  tiveuty-nintli  which  had 
taken  place  since  the  beginning  of  the  reign.  'There  is  no 
doubt,'  wrote  Campredon,  in  1721,  'that  if  the  Tsar  were  to 
die,  this  State  would  go  back  to  its  ancient  form  of  govern- 
ment, for  which  all  his  subjccls  secretly  sigh.' 

The  opposition  was  not  really  so  general  ;  it  grew  more 
and  more  timid  and  weak,  as  the  new  order  of  things  gained 
consistency  and  strength.  It  failed  to  interfere  seriously 
with  its  development,  but  it  never  gave  in,  to  the  very  end. 
The  elements  of  this  opposition,  the  motives  which  swayed 
it,  its  special  means  of  action,  its  spirit  and  its  character,  are 
all  evidently  summed  up  in  the  gloomy  incidents  of  which 
Peter's  eldest  son  was  the  pitiful  hero.  And  as  I,  too,  must 
shortly  sum  up  my  own  work,  I  shall  give  those  incidents 
the  principal  place  in  the  study  for  the  purpose  of  which 
this  closing  chapter  is  written. 

My  task  has  been  facilitated,  in  some  ways,  and  complicated 
in  others,  by  the  multij^licity  of  former  efforts  devoted  to  the 
same  subject.  History,  romance,  drama,  and  poetry,  in  all 
countries,  and  every  language,  have  essayed  to  conjure  up 
the  tragic  picture  of  the  unhappy  Tsarevitch.  A  brilliant 
French  writer  has  endowed  the  somewhat  rough-hewn  work 
of  Russian  historians  with  the  personal  charm  of  his  own 
brilliant  style.-  I  desire  to  avoid  all  useless  repetition.  But, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  the  true  features  of  these  events,  and  of 
the  persons  who  played  their  part  in  them,  have  not,  as  yet, 
been  brought  out  with  the  desirable  clearness,  and  the  greatest 
attainable  amount  of  veracity.  I  do  not  claim  that  I  shall 
succeed,  as  I  would  fain  have  succeeded  ;  but  my  readers 
will  forgive  me  if  I  make  the  attempt. 

II 

Ale.xis  was  born  on  February  19th,  1690.  Ilis  por- 
traits help  us  to  understand  his  story,  and  the  terrible  pro- 
secution  with   which  it  closed.     He  was  neither   ugly  nor 

^   Russian  S(ate  rajiers,  1878,  vol.  ii.  p.  353. 

*  Vicomtc  Mclchior  de  \'ogue,  / e  Fih  de  J'lerre  Ic  CraMir  ( Paris,  1884). 


THE  OPPOSITION -THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       511 

handsome ;  his  forehead  was  full ;  his  eyes  were  round  and 
uneasy,  and  his  whole  appearance  puny  and  obstinate. 
Neither  physically  nor  morally,  did  he  resemble  his  father  ; 
yet  he  was  anything  but  the  ill-favoured  creature  he  is  so 
frequently  represented  to  have  been.  He  strikes  me  as  a  man 
whose  health,  never  strong,  was  early  ruined  by  excess  of 
every  kind,  but  he  had  no  actual  infirmity.  His  intelligence 
was  naturally  clear  ;  he  was  fond  of  reading,  had  the  Slavonic 
facility  for  foreign  languages,  and  the  Slavonic  love  of  know- 
ledge,— of  a  certain  kind,  at  all  events.  Like  his  Uncle 
Feodor,  he  preferred  theological  vvorks.  This  marked  the 
old  Russian  spirit,  and  also  the  effect  of  the  viethodus  in- 
structionis  drawn  up  for  the  young  prince  by  one  of  his 
tutors,  the  Baron  Von  Huissen,  who  seems  to  have  been  a 
very  devout  person.  Certain  extracts  from  Baronius,  which 
figure  in  the  records  of  Peter's  prosecution  of  his  son,  as 
telling  against  the  culprit,  strike  me  as  indicating  quite 
different  tendencies  from  those  suspected  by  his  stern 
father.  They  seem  to  me  the  evidence  of  a  generous  and 
tender-hearted  soul.  Alexis  found  pleasure  in  the  thought 
that  Theodosius  and  Valentinian  habitually  liberated 
prisoners  on  the  occasion  of  the  Easter  Festivities,  forbade 
capital  executions  during  Lent,  and  ordered  that  fire- 
wood and  bedding  should  never  be  taken  from  the  poor. 
He  was  glad  too,  it  must  be  admitted,  to  remember  that  one  of 
these  Sovereigns  had  observed  the  Fasts  with  considerable 
severity,  and  that  the  other  had  been  killed,  because  he  had 
attempted  to  interfere  with  the  rights  of  the  Church. 
Certain  points  about  this  son  and  grandson  of  semi-Asiatic 
despots,  mark  him,  in  my  eyes,  as  what  we  should  call, 
nowadays,  a  liberal-minded  man,  though  others  prove  him  a 
fanatic,  of  the  purest  water.  But  he  was  neither  uncultivated 
nor  dull-minded.  Sometimes  he  was  actually  witty.  When 
he  was  asked,  in  the  course  of  cross-examination,  how  he 
had  dared  to  foretell  that  the  Tsar  might  one  day  lose 
St.  Petersburg,  he  replied,  'Well!  he  has  lost  Azof!'  He 
was  violent,  coarse,  and  brutal,  but  it  must  be  remembered 
that,  when  still  very  young,  he  was  taught  to  drink  to 
excess,  and  that  he  was  frequently  intoxicated.  He  pulled 
his  second  tutor,  Viaziemski,  about  by  his  hair,  and  he  even 
dragged  at  the  beard  of  his  Confessor,  the  Proto-pope 
Ignatief     lUit  these  fits  of  rage  seem   innocent  compared 


512  PETER  THE  GREAT 

with  those  in  which  he  saw  his  father  daily  indulge.  Violence, 
coarseness,  and  brutality  were  the  salient  characteristics  of 
the  society  in  which  he  lived. 

I  do  not  even  notice  any  deliberate  intention,  on  his  j)art, 
of  hostility  to  the  reforming  movement ;  I  find  him  taking 
an  interest  in  the  visit  paid  to  foreign  countries  by  the  son 
of  one  of  his  servants,  and  in  the  studies  he  is  pursuing, — 
insisting  that  the  boy  should  be  taught  Latin,  German,  and 
even  French.  But  what  alarmed  and  estranged  him  from 
the  revolution  by  means  of  which  Peter  desired  to  hurry  on 
this  movement,  was  the  excess  of  effort,  the  too  great 
violence  of  the  shock,  the  too  great  suddenness  of  the 
change,  and,  in  this  respect,  he  did  not  stand  alone.  The 
repugnance  which  put  him  out  of  tune  with  his  father,  was 
shared  by  a  good  half  of  Russia. 

He  remained  with  his  mother  till  he  was  nine  years  old. 
The  earliest  effects  of  the  Reform  had  not  been  fortunate 
for  her,  and  of  this  the  child  had  doubtless  been  made  aware. 
In  1699,  the  unhappy  Eudoxia  was  shut  up  in  the  Convent 
of  Souzdal ;  the  separation  was  probably  a  cruel  pang  and 
a  cause  of  early  bitterness  to  her  son.  The  mother's  place 
was  taken  by  tutors.  The  father,  absent  for  the  most  part, 
and  absorbed  by  the  anxieties  of  war,  did  not,  for  some  time, 
take  any  active  interest  in  his  son's  education.  When  he 
did,  the  first  conllict  at  once  arose.  The  Tsar,  who  had 
been  beaten  at  Narva,  and  who  was  to  conquer  at  Poltava, 
desired,  first  and  foremost,  that  his  son  should  be  a  soldier. 
Alexis  had  not  the  smallest  taste  for  the  warlike  profession. 
In  vain  did  Peter  dilate,  in  high-sounding  language,  on  the 
duties  incumbent  on  a  Sovereign.  The  Tsarevitch  willingly 
admitted  his  duty  to  fight  in  the  front  rank,  wherever  his 
subjects  fought ;  but  why  were  they  fighting  now?  It  would 
be  such  a  simple  matter  to  stay  in  their  own  country  and 
leave  the  Swedes  in  theirs !  The  pupil  was  not  docile,  the 
master  was  not  patient.  After  several  ineffectual  attempts, 
on  Peter's  part,  to  inspire  his  son  w  ilh  a  taste  for  the  rough 
profession  over  which  they  wrangled,  Alexis  was  left  to 
himself  at  Moscow,  and  treated  as  a  perfectly  useless  indi- 
vidual. Naturally  his  house  became  the  rall}-ing-point  of  all 
the  numerous  malcontents  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Kreml, — all  those  persons  who  were  worried  and  irritated 
by  the  incessant  disturbance,  and  never-ceasing  activity,  and 


THE  OPPOSITION— THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       513 

merciless  expenditure  of  strength,  so  characteristic  of  the 
new  regime.  The  youth  and  the  old  city  suited  each  other. 
He  loved  it,  and  it  returned  his  affection.  Especially  he 
loved  its  most  lovable  and  attractive  feature, — those  in- 
numerable sanctuaries,  cathedrals  and  chapels,  adorned  with 
gold  and  precious  stones,  full  of  mysterious  legends,  redolent 
of  mystery,  and  simple  poetry.  '  Do  you  believe,'  he  was 
asked  at  a  later  date,  '  that  your  betrothed  will  consent  to 
change  her  religion  .-' '  Smiling  confidently,  he  replied,  '  I 
will  do  nothing  to  force  her ;  I  will  only  take  her  to  our 
Moscow  churches — I  am  sure  she  will  readily  pray  there 
with  me.'  ^ 

And  now  the  revolution  dared  to  lay  a  sacrilegious  hand 
on  the  beauty  and  the  majesty  of  those  holy  places,  to 
deprive  the  capital  of  its  Patriarch,  and  strip  the  monasteries. 
Alexis  discussed  the  subject  with  his  confessor.  Kneeling 
in  his  bedroom  at  Preobrajenskoi'e,  before  he  made  his  first 
communion,  he  had  sworn  eternal  obedience  to  this  priest, 
promising  he  should  always  be  '  his  guardian  angel,  the 
judge  of  all  his  actions,  the  mouthpiece  of  Christ.'  And 
the  thrilling  voice  of  this  man  of  God  echoed,  excited,  and 
inflamed,  the  Prince's  inner  feelings.  It  spoke  of  the  indig- 
nation of  the  clergy,  the  profound  dejection  of  the  people, 
and  the  hopes  which  had  risen,  in  those  bleeding  hearts,  of  a 
change  of  ruler — to  one  who  should  follow  the  right,  and 
repair  the  errors  of  the  past.  It  called  up  memories  of  his 
mother,  that  first  and  most  piteous  victim  of  the  errors  and 
excesses  from  which  the  whole  community  was  suffering. 

A  change  of  ruler?  Did  the  Church  herself  see  no  other 
hope  of  salvation  ?  The  mind  of  the  youth,  startled  at  first, 
soon  grew  accustomed  to  the  thought.  The  words  of  the  Mus- 
covite aristocracy,  following  on  the  first  eager  ones  spoken 
by  the  priest,  increased  this  familiarity.  The  nobles  were 
furious  too,  and  out  of  patience ;  especially  they  were  out- 
raged by  the  sight  of  the  foreign  collaborators  with  whom 
Peter's  intercourse  was  daily  growing  more  exclusive.  Did 
not  Menshikof  seem  to  usurp  the  Tsarevitch's  own  proper 
place  beside  the  Tsar  .''  A  change  of  ruler .-'  That  meant  a 
father's  overthrow.  Yes!  but  it  also  meant  the  deliverance 
of  a  mother,  and  her  liberation  from  the  most  unmerited 
disgrace.  Alexis  saw  his  father  but  rarely  nowadays,  and 
^  Solovief,  Readitii^s  (Tchtenia),  1861,  Book  iii. 


514  PETER  THE  GREAT 

when  he  did  appear  it  was  always  in  the  character  of  a 
severe  and  anij^ry  master.  How  had  he  caused  him  to 
employ  his  time?  What  had  he  tau^dit  him?  lie  had 
never  dropped  a  kindly  word, — nothini^  but  rcjiroaches, 
threats  and  sometimes  blows,  occasionally  most  unjust, — 
as  in  1707,  when  the  boy  ventured  to  pay  a  visit  to  the 
unhapp}'  prisoner  shut  up  in  her  nunnery  at  Souzdal.^ 

In  1708,  Peter  was  suddenly  seized  with  a  fresh  desire  to 
set  his  heir  to  work,  'to  make  him  serve,'  as  he  himself  de- 
scribed it.  He  first  sent  him  to  Smolensk,  on  Army  Com- 
missariat duty,  and  then  to  Moscow,  with  orders  to  fortif)'  the 
town  atjainst  a  possible  Swedish  attack.  The  experiment 
failed  ;  the  father  was  furious,  and  the  son  wrote  letters 
to  the  most  influential  people  in  his  circle,  to  beg  their 
friendly  intervention.  He  applied,  amongst  others,  to  the 
new  favourite,  who  was  to  become  his  step-mother,  but 
whom,  in  the  meantime,  her  future  step-son  addressed  as 
Catherine  AU'xicievna.  The  following  year,  while  the 
Tsarevitch  was  bringing  up  reinforcements  sent  for  by  the 
Tsar,  the  young  prince  caught  cold  and  was  unable  to  be 
present  at  the  Battle  of  Poltava.  Pie  was  too  sickl)',  evi- 
dently, to  be  worth  anything  as  an  apprentice  in  the  art  of 
war.  If  he  was  to  be  made  into  a  satisfactory  heir,  some 
other  course  must  be  pursued.  Peter  resolved  to  send  his 
son  into  Germany,  to  complete  his  studies.  There  was  a 
chance  that  he  might  thus  gain  a  taste  for  that  civilisation 
to  the  elements  of  which  he  was  so  complete  a  stranger. 
And  besides,  he  was  to  choose  a  wife  whose  influence  might 
help  to  change  the  direction  of  his  mental  tendencies. 

Alexis  w^is  delighted  with  an  arrangement,  the  earliest 
effect  of  which  was  to  set  a  greater  distance  between 
himself  and  his  father.  He  allowed  himself  to  be  sent 
to  Dresden,  and  there  applied  himself,  or  pretended  to 
apply  himself,  to  the  study  of  Geometry  and  Fortifica- 
tion. But  he  still  kept  up  an  active  correspondence  with 
Ignatief, — who  sent  him  an  extra  Confessor,  disguised  as 
a  lacquey, — and  with  his  other  Moscow  friends,  who  kept 
him  informed  as  to  their  long-standing  grievances  and  hopes. 
He  allowed  himself  a  certain  amount  of  pleasure,  too,  and,  be- 
sides thinking  of  his  soul's  salvation,  he  took  care  to  replace  the 
lady-loves  he  had  left  behind  him  in  the  old  Capital.     Ex- 

'   Oustrialof,  vol.  vi.  p.   iS. 


THE  OPPOSITION-TIIE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       515 

trcmc  devotion  was  very  compatible,  in  the  P>yzantine  mind, 
with  a  certain  amount  of  Hcentiousncss.  Ikit  Peter  sur- 
rounded his  son  with  a  whole  gang  of  confidential  agents, 
who  were  commissioned,  not,  indeed,  to  protect  his  virtue, 
but  to  get  him  married,  at  the  earliest  possible  moment. 
The  young  prince  suddenly  gave  in  to  their  entreaties,  and 
pitched  his  choice  on  Princess  Charlotte  of  VVolfenblittel, 
whose  sister  had  married  the  future  Emperor,  Charles  vi., 
— a  very  suitable  marriage.  The  ceremony  took  place  at 
Torgau,  on  the  14th  of  August  17 11,  in  the  house  cf  the 
Queen  of  Poland  and  I£lectress  of  Saxony,  by  whom  Char- 
lotte had  been  brought  up. 

Peter's  idea  was  a  good  one,  the  success  of  which,  as  too 
often  happened  in  his  case,  was  compromised  by  the  over 
hasty  method  of  its  execution.  Charlotte,  though  not  very 
pretty,  though  her  face  was  pitted  with  small-pox,  though 
her  figure  was  long-waisted  and  flat,  was,  in  spite  of  these 
physical  imperfections,  a  very  charming  woman.  Ikit  she 
was  not,  by  any  means,  the  life-companion  Peter  had  dreamt 
of  for  his  son.  It  goes  to  our  hearts  to  see  this  poor,  delicate, 
graceful  creature,  caught  like  a  bird  in  a  net,  overshadowed 
by  the  gloomy  events  of  the  coming  drama,  utterly  unable 
to  defend  herself,  or  even  to  understand  what  was  happening 
to  her.      Suffering  and  death  were  her  inevitable  fate. 

The  early  days  of  the  marriage  promised  fairly.  Alexis 
appeared  well  pleased  with  his  bride.  He  replied  sharply  to 
Menshikof  s  ill-natured  remarks  about  her  ;  she  was  grateful 
to  him,  and  showed  her  gratitude.  She  was  a  gentle,  dreamy- 
natured  woman,  and  love  was  her  great  desire.  An  expedi- 
tion to  the  island  of  Riigen,  in  which  the  Tsarevitch  was  to 
take  part,  filled  her  with  alarm.  She  would  be,  she  wrote, 
*  unspeakably  wretched  if  she  were  to  lose  her  beloved  hus- 
band.' The  idea  of  accom.panying  him  to  St.  Petersburg 
terrified  her  at  first,  but,  immediately  afterwards,  she  de- 
clared herself '  ready  to  go  to  the  other  end  of  the  world,  so 
as  to  stay  with  him.'  ^  It  was  Peter,  again,  who  began  to 
spoil  matters  by  his  unflagging  efforts,  during  the  following 
years,  to  destroy  his  work.  The  idea  of  making  his  heir 
'serve'  was  upon  him  again.  Between  171 1  and  1713, 
Alexis  was  perpetually  travelling  about, — between  Thorn, 
where  he  was  again  despatched  on  business  connected  w  ith 

'  Guerrier,  Die  Kronprinzessin  Charlotte,  1S75,  pp.  25,  86,  90. 


5i6  PETER  THE  GREAT 

yXrmy  SiippU',  Pnmcrania,  where  he  was  sent  to  carry  secret 
orders  for  Menshikof,  and  the  shores  of  the  Lake  of  Ladoga, 
where  he  was  employed  about  shipbuildini^  matters.  At 
the  same  time,  the  household,  thus  broken  up,  was  cruelly 
pinched, — never  well-off,  pecuniarily  speakin<;,  and  frequently 
without  visible  resources.  In  April  1712,  the  Princess  was 
forced  to  appeal  to  Menshikof,  who  had  insulted  her,  to  lend 
her  5000  roubles,  and  in  17 13,  fearing  she  might  die  of  star- 
vation, she  took  refuge  with  her  own  relations.^ 

Conjugal  happiness  did  not  withstand  these  trials.  Char- 
lotte's letters  to  her  own  family  soon  began  to  betray  the 
fact  that  her  mind  was  disordered,  and  her  soul  distressed. 
In  November  17 12,  she  was  in  despair.  Her  position,  she 
wrote,  was  '  terrible.'  She  was  married  to  a  man,  who  had 
'  never  loved  '  her.  Then  there  was  a  ray  of  sunshine,  and 
everything  seemed  changed.  The  Tsarevitch  loved  her 
'  passionately,'  and  she  loved  him  '  to  madness.'  But  this 
was  a  mere  passing  gleam.  Another  letter,  written  soon 
after,  describes  her  as  being  '  more  wretched  than  any  one 
can  imagine,'  adding  that  she  had  endeavoured,  up  to  the 
present,  to  cast  a  veil  over  her  husband's  character,  but  that 
the  mask  had  fallen  at  last. 

The  danger  of  trusting  anything  to  the  chances  of  the 
Russian  post  may  have  had  something  to  do  with  the 
apparent  contradictions  visible  in  these  confidential  com- 
munications. It  is  certain,  at  all  events,  that  no  durable 
reconciliation,  nor  any  serious  intimacy,  can  ever  have  existed 
between  two  young  people  so  absolutely  unsuited  to  each 
other.  Graver  difficulties  of  a  moral  nature  were  added  to 
the  material  fact  of  an  almost  incessant  physical  separation. 
Charlotte  was  a  confirmed  Lutheran, — all  the  eloquence  of 
the  Moscow  churches  had  been  wasted  on  her.  Then  .she 
had  brought  a  small  German  court  in  her  train,  and  this 
formed  her  habitual  circle.  Alexis  was  as  fanatical  as  ever 
in  his  religious  views,  and  grew  more  and  more  wrapped  up 
in  the  narrow  particularism  of  Moscovian  orthodoxy.  All 
I'eter's  authority  and  violence  had  done,  was  to  make  his  son's 
resistance  to  the  spirit  of  the  new  regime  more  and  more 
stubborn.  An  open  struggle  had  begun  between  the  father 
and  the  son,  and  on  each  side  the  natural  disposition  grew 
more  clearly  marked, — Peter's  eager  and  active  originating 

'  Solovief,  vol.  xvii.  p.  148. 


THE  OPPOSITION— THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       517 

power,  his  deliberate  and  despotic  coercion,  in  the  interests  of 
revolution, — Alexis'  stubborn  and  passive  immobility,  and 
equally  deliberate  sullen  opposition.  In  17 13,  the  Tsare- 
vitch  fired  a  pistol  into  his  own  right  hand,  to  avoid  an 
examination  into  his  talents  as  a  draughtsman  ! 

His  attitude  was  strengthened  by  the  fact  that  a  more 
general  opposition  was  beginning  to  take  shape.  With- 
out any  intention  on  his  part,  without,  indeed,  being  well 
aware  of  it,  he  had  become  the  head  of  a  party.  Amongst 
the  clergy,  even  Stephen  lavorski  had  a  sympathetic  feeling 
for  him,  evidenced  by  the  famous  sermon  preached  on  the 
1 2th  of  March  1712,  and  the  representatives  of  the  old  aris- 
tocratic families,  such  as  the  Dolgoroukis  and  the  Galitzins, 
looked  towards  him  with  anxious  eyes.  Now  everything 
that  drew  him  nearer  them,  removed  him  yet  farther,  not  only 
from  his  parent,  but  from  his  wife.  She,  the  heretic  and  the 
foreigner,  had  no  place  in  the  future  they  dreamed  for  him 
and  for  themselves.     She,  too,  personified  the  hated  rvgime. 

In  1 7 14,  Alexis  obtained  permission  to  take  the  cure  at 
Carlsbad.  He  left  his  wife  without  regret,  though  she  was 
on  the  brink  of  her  confinement,  and  she  saw  him  depart 
without  any  sense  of  sorrow.  She  herself  now  suffered  from 
his  natural  brutality,  all  the  more  that  the  members  of  his 
circle  had  encouraged  him  in  that  coarse  debauchery 
which  formed  part  of  the  national  tradition,  the  perpetuation 
of  which  they  claimed  to  share  with  him.  He  frequented 
women  of  bad  character,  and  drank  to  excess.  '  He  is 
almost  always  drunk,'  writes  the  Princess.  She  was  even 
alarmed  as  to  the  danger  with  which  the  intemperate 
language,  resulting  from  his  drinking  excesses,  threatened 
him.  Under  the  influence  of  wine,  he  would  give  his  dreams 
expression,  '  When  what  is  to  happen  does  happen,  his 
father's  and  his  stepmother's  friends  are  to  make  acquaint- 
ance with  the  stake  .  .  .  the  fleet  is  to  be  burnt,  and  St. 
Petersburg  will  sink  down  into  its  own  marshes  ! ' 

On  his  return  from  Carlsbad,  he  seized  the  very  moment 
when  she  had  borne  him  a  daughter,  to  outrage  her  in 
the  most  cruel  manner.  Euphrosine,  the  celebrated 
courtesan,  who  was  to  play  such  a  ruinous  part  in  his 
existence,  appeared  beside  him,  with  every  attribute  of  a 
])ublicly  acknowledged  mistress.  In  the  following  year 
his  wife  once  more  had  hopes  of  becoming  a  mother.     He 


5i8  PETER  THE  GREAT 

watched  over  her,  with  a  certain  amount  of  care,  clininf^ 
a  period  of  very  tr)-ing  health,  but,  worn  out  by  sorrow, 
she  died  in  childbed  on  the  22nd  of  October  17 15.  Her 
re.sic^nation,  in  her  last  moments,  was  truly  admirable. 
A\cx\s/tf/>//{:(/  three  titnes  in  succession  beside  her  bed  !  Was 
this  sorrow  or  remorse?  Perhaps  it  was  the  mere  conscious- 
ness of  the  manner  in  whicli  her  death  increased  the  gravity 
of  his  own  position.  He  acknowledged,  later,  that  at  that 
moment  the  feeling  that  a  fresh  clanger  threatened  him 
had  crossed  his  mind.  The  dead  woman's  child  was  a  boy  ; 
a  second  heir  was  thus  provided  for  the  lunpire,  and  the 
consequences  of  this  event,  which  the  rebel  son  may  have 
dimly  foreseen,  were  soon  to  be  apparent. 

Six  days  later,  his  anxiety  was  confirmed  by  a  letter  from 
his  father,  cunningly  antedated  so  as  to  appear  as  if  it  had 
been  written  on  the  nth  of  October.  All  the  elements  of 
the  drama  of  which  he  was  to  be  the  principal  hero,  and  the 
victim,  had  been  brought  together,  and  the  curtain  was 
about  to  rise. 

The  letter  was  a  summons,  '  a  last  summons,'  as  the 
Sovereign  wrote,  and  he  pointed  out  that  it  was  not  his 
habit  to  make  u.se  of  empty  threats.  '  Thou  wilt  do  nothing, 
and  thou  wilt  learn  nothing ;  when  thou  comest  to  power, 
thou  wilt  have  to  be  fed  like  a  little  bird.  ...  I  do  not  spare 
my  own  life,  nor  that  of  any  of  my  subjects  ;  I  will  make 
no  exception  in  thy  case.  Thou  wilt  mend  thy  ways,  and 
thou  wilt  make  thyself  useful  to  the  State,  otherwise  thou 
shalt  be  disinherited.' 

The  word  had  been  spoken,  and  the  very  day  after  the 
delivery  of  the  letter,  the  lines  of  the  dilemma  it  referred  to 
were  deepened  by  another  incident ;  Catherine,  in  her  turn, 
bore  a  son. 

What  feeling  swayed  Peter  at  that  moment  ?  This,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  historical  responsibility,  is  the  great  pro- 
blem that  hangs  over  his  son's  lamentable  trial.  1  he  apolo- 
gists of  the  great  Tsar  have  claimed  that  he  was  inspired  by 
State  reasons.  Peter's  anxiety,  and  his  legitimate  anxiety, 
was  to  ensure  the  future  of  his  work,  and  protect  his  own 
inheritance  from  the  incapable  and  unworthy  heir  who 
threatened  it.  But  considerations  to  which  I  have  already 
had  occasion  to  refer  (see  p.  460),  and  others  which  will  be- 
come apparent  as  my  story  proceeds,  disincline  me  to  adopt 


THE  OPPOSITION— THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       519 

this  .solution.  The  extreme  enerf:^y  and  consistency  of  the 
Sovereign's  exercise  of  his  paternal  authority,  in  the  first 
place,  and  the  weakness  and  inconsistency  of  his  final  settle- 
ment of  the  dynastic  question,  in  the  second,  lead  me  to  the 
conclusion  that  these  two  matters  cannot  have  been  closely 
connected  in  his  mind.  I  believe,  on  the  whole,  that,  in  the 
first,  his  action  was  purely  despotic, — he  was  determined  to 
be  obeyed.  He  may,  too,  have  been  influenced  by  the 
natural  consequences  of  his  second  marriage.  Independently 
of  any  direct  pressure  on  Catherine's  part,  the  child  of  that 
beloved  wife  was  surely  dearer  to  him,  than  the  son  of 
his  repudiated  consort.  Alexis  must  have  been  a  living 
reproach  to  his  father,  and  that  father's  customary  manner 
of  treating  men  and  things  which  caused  him  discomfort  is 
well  known.     I  shall  have  to  return  to  this  question. 

Alexis,  advised  by  his  most  intimate  confidants,  Viazi- 
emski,  Kikin,  and  Ignatief,  made  a  bold  answer  to  the 
mighty  blow  dealt  at  him.  He  acknowledged  himself  unfit 
to  bear  the  heavy  burden  of  the  Crown,  declared  himself  ill, 
and  weakened  in  body  and  mind,  and  offered,  now  that  he  saw 
he  had  a  brother  to  replace  him,  to  spontaneously  resign  his 
rights.  All  he  asked  was  to  be  allowed  to  retreat  into  the 
country,  and  to  be  given  means  to  live  there  quietly.  Peter, 
who  had  not  expected  to  be  taken  literally,  was  somewhat 
suspicious  of  this  prompt  submission.  He  took  time  to 
reflect,  and  then,  on  the  19th  January  17 16,  he  returned  to 
the  charge.  He  had  endeavoured,  in  former  days,  to  con- 
vince his  son  of  the  necessity  of  taking  up  a  more  manly 
attitude,  by  appeals  to  the  memory  of  Louis  XIV.,  and  even 
to  the  heroes  of  Greek  history.  This  time  he  invoked  the 
memory  of  King  David.  1  he  Psalmist  King  had  proclaimed 
the  truth  that  'all  men  are  liars.'  A  retreat  into  the  country 
would,  in  the  case  of  the  Tsarevitch,  be  both  an  impropriety 
and  a  deceit.  The  subject  must  be  reconsidered.  An  heir 
who  never  expected  to  reign,  and  still  remained  a  prince, 
would  be  neither  fish  nor  flesh.  Alexis  must  choose  between 
the  throne  and  a  more  safely-guarded  retreat.  He  must 
either  prove  himself  worthy  to  reign  or  become  a  monk  ; 
there  was  to  be  no  alternative.  The  choice  lay  in  his  hand. 
If  he  failed  to  make  one,  he  was  to  be  treated  'as  a 
malefactor.' 

The  cloister !  '  the  deep  dungeon,  the  tomb-like  retreat 


520  PETER  THE  GREAT 

wliich  kills  in  silence,' as  a  certain  pf)ct-historian  has  described 
it !  Alexis  shivered  at  the  thoui^dit.  lie  consulted  a^ain 
with  his  friends.  'Pooh!'  replied  Kikin,  'you  will  come 
back,  the  klolwok  (monk's  cap)  is  not  fastened  on  with 
nails  ! '  Three  lines  expressed  the  son's  rej^ly  ;  he  would  be 
a  monk,  but,  while  he  addressed  this  message  to  his  father, 
he  took  care  to  give  its  real  meaning  in  two  letters  confided 
to  Kuphrosine,  for  Kikin  and  Ignatief,  two  of  the  foremost 
members  of  the  retrograde  party.  These  letters  contained 
the  words,  '  I  am  going  into  a  monastery,  driven  there  by 
force! 

Peter  was  once  more  taken  at  a  disadvantage.  He  was 
just  about  to  go  abroad,  and  left  things  as  they  were.  Me 
evidently  felt  he  had  gone  too  far.  He  had  expect(xl  to 
frighten  his  son,  and  make  him  sue  for  mercy.  He  knew 
only  too  well  the  part  in  the  national  history  played  by 
monks,  even  less  closely  related  to  the  throne.  Unliappily 
for  Alexis,  his  friends  soon  gave  him  other  and  less  wise 
counsels,  and  he,  obedient  to  their  advice,  took  the  offensive, 
lost  all  the  benefits  of  his  apparent  resignation,  gave  back 
his  father  all  the  advantage  he  had  won  over  him,  and  finally 
cast  himself  into  the  gulf 

But  before  I  follow  him  down  that  fatal  slope,  I  must  say 
a  few  words  about  a  very  strange,  and,  at  one  time,  a  very 
generally  credited  legend,  which  increases  the  complications, 
and  adds  to  the  dark  riddles,  and  romantic  features,  of 
this  gloomy  tragedy. 

Ill 

The  Princess  Charlotte  is  said  to  have  survived  her 
husband.  According  to  the  accepted  story,  worn  out  by  his 
ill-treatment, — he  had  actually  kicked  her,  when  .she  was 
near  her  confinement — she  had  passed  herself  off  as  dead, 
and  aided  by  one  of  her  ladies.  Countess  Warbeck,  she  first 
of  all  escaped  to  France,  and  then  sailed  to  Lousiana,  where 
she  married  a  PVench  officer,  the  Chevalier  d'Auban,  to 
whom  she  bore  a  daughter.  After  ten  years  of  marriage,  .she 
reappeared  in  Paris,  whither  her  husband  had  come  to  con- 
sult doctors,  and  undergo  an  operation.  She  was  recognised 
in  the  Tuileries  Gardens  by  a  gentleman,  the  future  Marshal 
de  Saxe,  who   had  seen  her  at    St.  Petersburg.      He  was 


THE  OPPOSITION— THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       521 

anxious  to  mention  their  meeting  to  the  King,  but  she  made 
him  promise  to  keep  silence  for  three  months,  and,  at  the 
end  of  that  period,  she  had  disappeared.  She  had  departed 
to  the  island  of  Bourbon,  where  her  husband  had  taken  up 
duty.  The  King,  informed  of  this  fact,  transmitted  the 
news  to  the  Empress  Maria  Theresa,  who  was  Princess 
Charlotte's  own  niece,  and  who  offered  to  receive  her,  if  she 
would  consent  to  separate  from  the  gentleman  whose  name 
she  bore.  She  refused.  She  did  not  return  to  France  till 
after  the  Chevalier's  death  in  1760,  and  then  lived  a  most 
retired  life,  in  a  country  house  at  Vitry,  which  she  bought 
from  President  Feydeau,  for  112,000  francs.  These  details, 
it  will  be  observed,  are  very  exact.  She  received  a  pension 
of  45,000  livres  from  the  Empress,  her  niece,  and  gave  away 
three-parts  of  it  in  alius.  Her  story  was  fairly  well  known 
in  Paris,  so  much  so  that  when  Voltaire  was  occupied  on  his 
'  H  istory  of  Russia,  under  Peter  the  Great,'  he  applied  to  the 
Due  de  Choiseul  for  information  on  the  subject.  The  Duke 
answered,  that,  like  everybody  else,  he  was  acquainted  with 
the  story,  iDut  that  he  could  not  vouch  for  its  authenticity.^ 

The  supposed  Princess  died  in  1771,  and  the  Paris  news- 
]:)apers  gave  the  strange  posthumous  biography,  the  principal 
features  of  which  I  have  just  described,  in  the  fullest  detail. 
Catherine  II ,  who  then  ruled  Russia,  was  much  disturbed, 
and  answered  by  an  argument  containing  six  heads.  '  Every 
one  knows,'  she  affirmed,  '  that  the  Princess  died  of  con- 
sumption in  17 1 5,  and  that  she  never  suffered  any  ill-treat- 
ment whatsoever.'  '  Every  one  knows,'  retorted  one  of  the 
journalists  concerned,  'that  Peter  III.  died  of  apoplexy!' 
The  Austrian  Ambassador — and  this  is  an  historical  fact — 
was  present  at  the  lonely  burial  at  Vitry,  and  the  Abbe 
Sauvestre,  Court  Almoner,  officiated,  by  order  of  the  King, 
l^ut  Voltaire  appears  to  have  been  enlightened,  at  an  earl>' 
date,  with  regard  to  this  enigmatic  personage.  In  a  letter 
to  Madame  P'ontaine,  dated  September  1760,  he  laughs  at 
the  credulity  of  the  Parisians,  and  in  another  written  a  little 
later,  to  Madame  Bassewitz,  he  asserts  that  the  Chevalier 

^  This  answer  is  included  in  one  of  tlie  Memoirs,  written  by  \'oltaire,  wiih  a 
vjew  to  this  work.  These  documents,  the  lo=s  of  which  Oustrialof  has  wrongly 
deplored, — for  they  are  in  the  I'hilosoplicr's  Library,  which  is  known  to  have 
been  removed  to  St.  Petersburg, — prove  that  he  laboured  very  conscientiously, 
though  certain  notes  and  remarks  are  singular  enougli,  such  as  the  following  :— 
*  Camshatka,  grand  pays  ou  ni  pain  ni  vin  .   .   .  Comment  messe  ? ' 


522  PETER  THE  GREAT 

d'Auban  married  a  Polish  adventuress.     In  I78i,an  inhabit- 
ant of  the  French  capital  had  the  curiosity  to  go  to  Vitr)-,  and 
there  consult  the  Parish  Registers  ;    the  name  of  the  dead 
woman  was  given  as  Dortic-Maric-Elizabcth  Daniclsoii} 
I  possess  no  more  informatic^n  on  the  subject. 

IV 

On  the  28th  of  August  17 16,  after  a  silence  which  had 
lasted  six  months,  Peter,  who  had  left  St.  Petersburg  very 
early  in  the  year,  sent  a  fresh  summons  to  his  son.  'If  he 
desired  to  remain  in  the  world,  he  was  to  prove  his  princely 
quality  by  coming  to  join  his  father,  and  making  the 
Camijaign  with  him.  If  he  preferred  to  become  a  monk, 
the  moment  had  arrived  for  giving  effect  to  his  declared 
intention  ;  he  must  choose  a  Monastery,  and  specify  the  day 
on  which  he  proposed  to  be  received.'  According  to  some 
writers,  the  Tsar  had  already  forestalled  his  son's  decision, 
by  choosing  an  Abbey  at  Tver,  and  causing  a  cell  to  be  pre- 
pared for  his  recej:)tion,  the  arrangements  of  which  strongly 
resembled  those  of  a  prison.-  Were  the  young  Prince's 
friends  aware  of  this  fact  ?  Such  knowledge  would  excuse 
their  action.  In  any  case,  the  decision,  taken  on  their 
unanimous  advice,  by  the  unhappy  Alexis,  was  promptly 
made.  He  informed  Menshikof  that  he  was  starting  to 
join  his  father,  asked  for  lOOO  ducats  to  pay  his  journey, 
and  for  leave  to  take  Euphrosine  with  him ;  obtained 
another  2000  roubles  from  the  Senate,  and  set  forth  towards 
Riga,  on  26th  of  September  17 16.  But,  at  the  last  moment, 
he  confided  his  secret  intentions  to  Afanassief,  his  valct-de- 
chambre,  whom  he  left  behind  him  at  St.  Petersburg.  He 
had  no  idea  of  joining  the  Tsar  ;  he  was  going  to  Vienna,  to 
place  himself  under  the  protection  of  the  Kmperor.  Kikin 
had  arrived  there  several  months  previously,  to  feel  the  way, 

"^Journal  de  Paris,  Feb.  15,  177 1.  Consult  also,  with  reference  to  this 
incident,  the  Chevalier  Bossu's  Nouvcaux  Voyages  dans  V Aiiu'riqiie  Scpteutriouale, 
I'aris,  1S77  (ihe  first  work  which  alludes  to  it) ;  Continuation  de  P Histoire 
Moderne  de  F Ai>hi!  de  Muiry,  hy  Richer  ;  Extrait  dii  MJniorial  de  M.  Duclos, 
historioi^raphe  de  France,  inserted  in  Interesting  and  Little-known  Historical 
Documents,  Brussels- I'aris,  1781  ;  Levcsc|ue,  History  of  Teter  the  Great,  vol.  ii.; 
Russian  Antiquities,  1874,  j).  360.  A  clever  tale  was  written  on  the  subject, 
and  a  vaudeville  founded  on  the  incident  was  performed  at  the  Th(5atre  des 
N'arieies  in  Paris. 

''■  Messager  Russe,  1S60,  No.  13. 


THE  OPPOSITION-THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       523 

and  had  sent  back  reassuring  tidings  ;  the  Emperor  wouUi 
not  give  up  his  brother-in-law,  and  would  allow  him  3000 
florins  monthly  for  his  support. 

At  Libau,  the  fugitive  met  his  aunt,  Maria  Alexicievna, 
and  at  once  took  her  into  his  confidence.  She  was  alarmed, 
'Where  dost  thou  think  to  hide  thyself?  He  will  find  thee 
everywhere ! '  She  did  not  encourage  him,  for  though  ill- 
disposed  towards  Peter,  on  account  of  his  second  marriage, 
slie  was  filled  with  a  terrifying  sense  of  his  omnipotence. 
Alexis  did  his  best  to  reassure  her,  found  courage  himself  in 
the  hopes  held  out  by  Kikin,  and  continued  on  his  way. 

It  v.as  a  considerable  time  before  Peter  knew  what  had 
become  of  his  son.  At  the  first  news  of  his  disappearance, 
he  loosed  his  cleverest  bloodhounds  in  pursuit, — Viesselovski, 
his  Resident  at  Vienna,  Roumiantsof,  and  Tolstoi'.  It  was  a 
regular  coursing  match.  '  We  are  on  the  track,  we  shall 
soon  catch  the  brute.'  Such  terms  as  these  were  constantly 
used  by  the  pursuers.     The  hunt  went  on  for  nearly  a  year. 

On  the  evening  of  the  loth  of  November  1716,  the  Tsare- 
vitch  suddenly  appeared  at  Vienna,  in  the  presence  of  Count 
Schonborn,  and  '  with  many  gesticulations,  casting  terrified 
glances  right  and  left,  and  rushing  from  one  end  of  the  room 
to  the  other,'  he  claimed  the  Emperor's  help,  to  save 
his  life.  He  accused  his  tutors  of  having  brought  him  up  ill, 
declared  Menshikof  had  ruined  his  health  by  teaching  him 
to  drink,  said  his  father  desired  to  kill  him  by  dint  of  over- 
work, and  ended  by  asking  for  beer.  The  Emperor  and  his 
councillors,  sorely  perplexed,  made  up  their  minds  to  en- 
deavour to  arrange  the  dificrcnces  betv^een  father  and  son, 
and  in  the  meantime  to  conceal  the  whereabouts  of  the 
latter.  An  old  keep  in  the  valley  of  the  Lech,  known  as  the 
Castle  of  Ehrenberg,  which  was  destroyed,  in  the  year  1800, 
by  Massena's  soldiers,  occurred  to  them  as  being  a  safe 
hiding-place,  and  thither  Alexis  allowed  himself  to  be  con- 
ducted, and  shut  up  as  a  State  prisoner,  in  the  most  pro- 
found incognito. 

It  was  not  until  the  month  of  March,  in  the  following  j-car, 
that  he  was  discovered.  It  then  became  known  that  Roumi- 
antsof and  several  officers  were  prowling  round  the  little 
fortress,  and  it  was  reported  that  his  orders  were,  to  obtain 
possession  of  the  fugitive's  person  at  any  cost.  The  Austrian 
Government  decided  to  send  him  to   Naples,  which,  as  my 


524  PETER  THE  GREAT 

readers  are  aware,  had  been  ceded  to  the  Imperial  house  by 
the  Treaty  of  Utrecht.  He  was  invited  to  dispense  with  his 
Muscovite  servants,  whose  drunken  habits  compromised  his 
safety.  He  insisted  on  keepin^i;  one  pajje,  and  this  was  per- 
mitted for  reasons  thus  explained  in  a  letter  from  Count 
Schonborn  to  Prince  Eugene  of  Savoy:  '  Our  little  page  .  . 
has  been  at  last  acknowledged  as  a  female.  .  .  .  She  is  de- 
clared to  be  a  mistress,  and  indispensably  necessary.'  ^ 

This  page,  as  my  readers  will  have  guessed,  was  Kuphro- 
sine.  Testimony  as  to  her  origin  is  most  conflicting.  She 
ma}'  have  been  a  Finnish  peasant,  one  of  Viazicmski's  serfs, 
or,  like  Catherine,  the  captive  of  a  victorious  general.  Roumi- 
antsof  describes  her  as  tall,  stout,  with  thick  lips  and  red 
hair.  Viesselovski  declares  she  was  short  of  stature.  In  any 
case,  she  was  a  child  of  the  people,  and  of  a  very  low  class. 
How  did  she  acquire  that  absolute  mastery  over  the  heart  of 
Alexis,  which,  so  often,  lies  at  the  root  of  human  tragedy? 
This  is  an  eternal  m\-stery.  The  unhapjjy  prince  seems  to 
have  inherited  that  peculiar  form  of  sensuality,  coarse  to  the 
last  degree,  and  yet  not  untouched  by  sentimentality,  which 
appears  in  most  of  the  great  Tsar's  love  affairs,  without  a 
symptom  either  of  his  intelligence  or  of  his  strong  will.  At 
Naples,  Kuijhrosine  was  to  decide  his  fate. 

Roumiantsof  first  of  all  followed  him  to  that  place,  then, 
returning  to  Vienna,  he  joined  Tolstoi  in  an  official  demand 
for  the  surrender  of  the  Tsarevitch's  person.  The  matter 
was  growing  serious.  The  Tsar  seemed  resolved  to  proceed 
to  extreme  measures,  and  the  army  he  then  had  in  Poland 
was  very  well  able  to  convert  the  threats,  evident  in  the 
haughty  language  held  by  his  agents,  into  grim  reality. 
Silesia  was  within  his  grasp,  not  to  mention  Bohemia, 
v.here  he  was  certain  to  be  heartily  welcomed  by  the 
Slavonic  population  of  the  country.  Charles  vi.  tried  to 
temporise.  He  wrote  to  King  George  of  England,  to  in- 
terest him  in  the  cause  of  the  persecuted  son,  and  en- 
deavoured to  delay  matters  till  the  end  of  the  campaign 
then  in  progress,  which  did  not  promise  well  f(^r  the  Tsar's 
arms.     Meanwhile,  he    persuaded  the  two   Russians  to  try 

'  Oustrialof,  vol.  vi..  p.  95.  .\11  the  following  dct.iils  h.ive  been  diawn,  ex- 
cept where  the  contrary  is  indica'ed,  from  the  documents  piil)lislie(l  liy  the  ahovc 
historian,  and  from  the  sixth  volume  of  his  work,  which  is  entirely  devoted  lo 
the  Tsarevitch  and  his  trial. 


THE  OPPOSITION— THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       525 

what  they  themselves  could  do  at  Naples.  Perhaps  the 
Tsarevitch  might  be  induced  to  put  himself  into  their  hands 
willingly.  To  Naples  they  went,  and  then  began  a  struggle, 
in  which  Count  Daun,  the  Viceroy,  played  a  far  from  noble 
part.  Orders  had  been  sent  him  from  Vienna  to  facilitate 
an  interview  between  the  Russian  Sovereign's  agents  and  the 
young  Prince,  and  even,  if  necessary,  to  force  the  young  man 
to  grant  one.  He  simply  opened  the  gates  of  the  Castle  of 
St.  Elmo,  where  the  fugitive  had  been  shut  up,  to  the  Tsar's 
messengers.  He  suspected  his  master's  great  desire  to  get 
rid  of  his  protege,  and  he  was  not  mistaken.  Tolstoi  and 
Roumiantsof  soon  drove  him  to  assume  the  extreme  conse- 
quences of  this  supposition. 

Alexis  underwent  a  regular  siege.  He  was  first  shown  a 
letter  from  his  father,  half  threatening  and  half  merciful, 
which  promised  him  pardon  for  all  his  faults,  in  return  for 
his  swift  submission.  If  this  was  refused,  the  Tsar  would 
declare  war  on  Austria,  and  take  back  his  son  by  main  force. 
Alexis  held  firm.  Then  Count  Daun's  secretary,  Weinhart, 
who  had  been  bought  over  with  a  few  ducats,  dropped  a 
confidential  word  in  his  ear.  The  Emperor  had  decided  to 
leave  him  to  his  fate.  Next,  Tolstoi',  in  the  course  of  con- 
versation, said  something  of  Peter's  expected  arrival  in  Italy, 
and  Alexis,  already  terrified,  began  to  tremble.  Finally, 
Daun  himself  went  beyond  his  instructions,  and  put  forward 
a  threat  which  had  the  most  immediate  effect.  If  the  Tsare- 
vitch desired  to  remain  at  St.  Elmo,  he  must  make  up  his 
mind  to  part  with  Euphrosine.  Then  the  serf-girl  herself 
appeared  upon  the  scene.  She  had  been  won  over  by  pro- 
mises or  gifts,  and  made  common  cause — as  she  boasted  at 
a  later  period — with  the  father  against  the  son.  Her  tears 
and  supplications  strengthened  the  assault,  and  Alexis  gave 
in  at  discretion. 

Two  conditions,  only,  he  attached  to  his  obedience.  He 
was  to  be  allowed  to  live  quietly  on  his  country  property, 
and  there  was  to  be  no  more  talk  of  parting  him  from  his 
mistress.  Tolstoi  and  Roumiantsof  both  agreed,  and  even 
undertook  to  obtain  the  Tsar's  consent  to  his  son's  marriage 
with  the  girl.  He  wrote  his  father  a  very  humble  letter,  full 
of  repentance  for  the  past,  and  entreaties  that  his  two  final 
requests  might  be  granted.  Then  after  an  excursion  to  Pari, 
where  he  greatly  desired  to  adore  the  relics  of  St.  Nicholas, 


526  PETER  THE  GREAT 

he  allowed  himself  to  be  carried  off.  He  soon  recovered 
confidence  and  cheerfulness,  and  was  delighted  with  a  letter 
from  his  father,  received  on  the  road.  The  Tsar  was  willing 
to  allow  him  to  marry  Euphrosine,  and  only  stipulated  that 
the  ceremony  should  take  place  in  some  out-of-the-way 
corner  of  Russia,  '  so  as  to  avoid  still  greater  shame.'  The 
mistress  was  in  an  interesting  condition,  and  he  had  been 
obliged  to  leave  her  behind  him  in  Italy ;  but  she  was  to  re- 
join him  after  her  confinement,  and  he  had  charged  one  of 
her  own  brothers  to  watch  over  his  treasure.  To  this  indi- 
vidual he  writes  as  follows  : — '  Ivan  Fedorovitch,  I  salute  thee  ! 
I  beseech  thee  to  watch  over  thy  sister  and  my  wife  (this  is  not 
yet  accomplished,  but  I  have  the  order)  [s/c],  so  that  she  may 
have  no  sorrow,  for  so  far  nothing  has  interfered'  (to  prevent 
the  marriage)  '  save  her  condition,  and,  with  God's  help,  all 
will  go  well.'  This  letter  contains  a  postscript,  addressed  to 
one  of  the  servants  who  waited  on  the  lady  of  his  affections. 
It  betrays  all  the  anxiet}',  and  all  the  inherent  coarseness,  of 
her  lover.  'Alexander  Mihailovitch  .  .  .'  (here  come  two 
coarse  expressions),  '  do  all  that  in  thee  lies  to  amuse  Euph- 
rosine, so  that  she  may  not  be  unhappy,  for  everything  is 
going  well,'  adding  an  intimation  that,  because  of  the  lady's 
condition,  'things  cannot  be  quickly  accomplished.' 

Euphrosine's  amusement  does  not  appear  to  have  been  a 
difficult  matter.  During  her  journey  along  the  road  whereon 
the  man  she  had  betraj^ed  was  travelling  to  torture  and  to 
death,  her  chief  thought  was  to  amuse  herself  by  spending 
the  money — the  price  of  his  blood — she  had  just  earned. 
At  Venice  she  bought  thirteen  ells  of  cloth-of-gold,  for  one 
hundred  and  sixty-seven  ducats,  besides  a  cross  and  earrings 
and  a  ruby  ring.  She  went  to  listen  to  a  concert,  and  was 
sorry  to  find  neither  opera  nor  play-acting  in  the  town.  Did 
she  give  a  thought  to  the  future — to  that  dream  of  love  and 
happiness,  free  from  all  care,  in  a  retirement  shared  with 
Aphrosiiiiouslika,  which  was  the  theme  of  all  Alexis'  letters? 
No  sign  of  it  appears  in  the  commonplace  answers  she  dic- 
tated to  a  secretary,  to  which  she  would  add  a  few  lines  in 
her  own  large,  ill-formed  handwriting,  requesting  her  lover 
to  send  her  some  national  dainty — caviare,  or  cas/ia. 

One  chance  of  salvation  for  the  unhappy  Ale.xis  yet  re- 
mained. The  events  which  had  occurred  at  Naples  had 
disturbed  the  Emperor's  feelings,  and  caused  him  pricks  of 


THE  OPPOSITION— THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       527 

conscience.  He  feared  some  violence  had  been  done  the 
Tsarevitch,  and  resolved  to  see  his  brother-in-law,  on  his  way 
through  his  dominions,  and  make  personal  inquiry  of  him. 
Suddenly  he  became  aware  that  the  Russian  Prince  was 
already  at  Briinn  in  Moravia.  Tolstoi  and  Koumiantsof  had 
hurried  him  through  Vienna  in  the  night.  They  were  deter- 
mined to  carry  off  their  spoil.  Charles  VI.  did  his  duty 
nobly.  The  Governor  of  the  Province,  Count  Colloredo,  was 
given  orders  to  stop  the  travellers,  to  see  the  Tsarevitch  witJi- 
out  zuitnesses,  to  find  out  whether  he  was  returning  to  Russia 
of  his  ozvn  free  zui'll,  and,  in  case  of  a  negative  reply,  to  pro- 
vide him  with  means  to  stay  in  Austria,  and  take  all  neces- 
sary measures  to  ensure  his  safety.  This  order,  alas  !  was 
not  carried  into  effect.  A  scene  took  place  at  the  inn,  where 
Alexis  was  lodged  with  his  escort,  which  proves  the  immense 
increase  of  moral  power  already  acquired  by  Russia,  under 
Peter's  rule  and  teaching.  Right  in  the  middle  of  the  Em- 
peror's country  these  agents  of  the  Tsar  barred  the  progress 
of  the  Emperor's  representative.  They  threatened,  if  that 
were  necessary,  to  oppose  access  to  the  Tsarevitch,  sword  in 
hand.  Colloredo  sent  for  fresh  instructions,  and  this  time — 
alas!  again — the  Imperial  Council  pronounced  for  absten- 
tion. Thus  Alexis'  fate  was  sealed,  and,  on  the  31st  of 
January  17 18,  Peter  had  the  gloomy  satisfaction  of  knowing 
his  son  was  back  in  Moscow.    , 


No  one  in  Europe  suspected  the  nature  of  the  fate  to 
which  the  unhappy  boy  was  destined,  and  the  weakness  of 
the  Imperial  Councillors  finds  a  partial  justification  in  this 
fact.  The  Gazette  de  Hollande  was  actually  announcing  the 
Prince's  approaching  marriage  with  his  cousin,  Anna  Ivan- 
ovna.  In  Russia,  on  the  contrary,  the  emotion  was  general 
and  deep.  The  most  contradictory  stories  had  been  circu- 
lated during  the  long  absence  of  the  Tsarevitch.  He  had 
been  believed  to  be  betrothed  to  a  German  Princess, — im- 
prisoned in  a  cloister, — put  to  death  by  his  father's  order, — 
concealed,  under  a  borrowed  name,  in  the  ranks  of  the 
Imperial  army.  When  the  real  truth  came  out,  it  spread 
terror  amongst  his  ojjcn  and  his  .secret  partisans.  There 
was  no  likelihood  that  Peter  would  be  content  with  having 


528  PETER  THE  GREAT 

refrained  possession  of  his  son  ;  there  wt)uld  certainly  be  an 
inquiry,  a  search  for  accomphces,  and  sittings  in  the  Ques- 
tion Chambers  at  Preobrajensko'ie.  Kikin,  the  most  directly 
compromised  of  all  the  Tsarevitch's  friends,  endeavoured  to 
induce  Afanassief,  the  Prince's  valet-de-chambre,  to  go  to 
meet,  and  warn,  his  master  ;  but  the  man,  fearing  he  might 
arouse  suspicion,  refused  to  budge.  None  of  the  persons 
most  closely  interested  ever  reckoned,  for  a  moment,  on  the 
pardon  granted  the  culprit  by  the  Tsar ;  and  Peter  soon 
justified  the  general  opinion. 

On  the  3rd  of  February  1718,  the  higher  clergy  and  all  the 
lay  dignitaries  were  convoked  in  solemn  meeting  at  the 
Kreml.  Alexander  was  brought  into  their  presence  as  an 
accused  prisoner, — without  his  sword.  When  Peter  saw  him, 
he  burst  into  a  fury,  and  overwhelmed  him  with  abuse  and 
reproaches.  The  Tsarevitch  fell  on  his  knees,  wept  floods  of 
tears,  stammered  excuses,  and  once  more  entreated  the  for- 
giveness on  promise  of  which  he  had  allowed  himself  to  be 
led  home,  like  a  sheep  to  the  slaughter.  Pardoned  he  should 
be,  but  he  had  made  conditions,  and  now  the  Tsar  was  going 
to  impose  his.  The  guilty  and  unworthy  Prince  was  solemnly 
and  formally  to  resign  the  Crown,  and  to  denounce  all  those 
who  had  shared  in  his  wrong-doing, — who  had  advised,  or 
assisted  him,  in  his  wicked  flight.  The  popular  fear  had 
come  true.  This  meant  a  criminal  inquiry,  with  all  its 
hideous  following  of  torture  and  execution.  In  the  Cathedral 
of  the  Assumption,  before  the  Gospels,  and  on  the  very  spot 
where  he  should,  one  day,  have  assumed  the  Imperial  diadem, 
Alexis  abdicated  his  rights  to  the  throne,  and  recognised  his 
younger  brother,  Peter,  Catherine's  son,  to  be  the  rightful 
heir.  Then,  in  one  of  the  low-roofed  chambers  of  the  Kreml, 
where  his  father  shut  himself  up  with  him  alone,  he  ga\e  up 
the  names, — all  those  he  could  call  to  mind,  all  those  which 
corresponded,  in  his  terrified  memory,  with  the  recollection 
of  any  encouragement,  with  any  sign  of  sympath}',  even  with 
any  affectionate  word,  dropped  in  the  midst  of  that  mental 
crisis  which  had  driven  him  into  flight. 

He  was  warned  that  one  single  omission,  or  reticence, 
would  cost  him  the  benefit  of  his  confession. 

Kikin's  was  the  first  name  given,  then  came  Viaziemski, 
Vassili  Dolgorouki,  Afanassief,  and  many  others.  Even  the 
Tsarevna  Maria  herself  was  mentioned,  on  account  of  that 


THE  OPPOSITION— THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       529 

meeting  at  Libau,  and  in  spite  of  the  reserve  she  had  then 
manifested.  At  each  fresh  name,  Peter  yelled  with  fury. 
Until  1 7 14,  Kikin  had  been  one  of  the  most  intimate 
members  of  his  circle, — Weber  had,  on  more  than  one  occa- 
sion, seen  the  Tsar  holding  him  in  his  arms,  ^  for  over  a  quarter 
of  an  Jwur!^  Dolgorouki  was  the  only  member  of  the  old 
aristocracy  in  whom  the  Sovereign  had  placed  great  con- 
fidence. Both  were  at  once  brought  to  AIoscow,  with  iron 
collars  round  their  necks,  and  the  inquiry  began. 

One  thing  was  soon  proved,  that  no  understanding  as  to 
any  fixed  aim  had  ever  existed  between  Alexis  and  his 
friends.  There  was  not  the  shadow  of  a  conspiracy,  properly 
so  called.  The  foreign  diplomats'  reports  to  their  Govern- 
ments, almost  unanimously  expressing  a  contrary  view,  must 
have  arisen  out  of  a  misunderstanding,  or  been  inspired  by  a 
base  desire  to  please  the  Tsar.  Alexis  may,  indeed,  as  the 
Dutch  Resident  affirmed,  have  had  the  aristocracy  his  father 
had  humiliated,  the  clergy  he  had  stripped,  and  the  people  he 
had  crushed  under  the  triple  yoke  of  serfdom,  taxation,  and 
perpetual  military  service,  '  on  his  side.'  '^  But  all  these 
were  partisans,  not  conspirators.  And,  indeed,  as  a  party, 
their  condition  was  most  elementary,  there  was  no  organisa- 
tion of  any  kind.  De  Bie  goes  so  far  as  to  speak  of  two 
plots,  directed  simultaneously,  and  separately,  to  the  same 
object — the  accession  of  Alexis  to  the  throne,  the  proscrip- 
tion of  all  foreigners,  and  the  conclusion  of  a  peace  of  some 
kind  with  Sweden.  All  this  is  pure  imagination.  The  Preo- 
brajenskoie  torture-chambers  brought  nothing  of  the  kind  to 
light.  A  certain  clerk  in  the  Department  of  the  Artillery, 
named  Dodoukin,  was  called  upon  to  swear  allegiance  to 
the  new  heir-apparent.  He  replaced  this  formula  by  a  violent 
protest ;  but  he  was  no  conspirator,  he  was  a  political 
martyr.^ 

Kikin,  during  a  stay  of  several  weeks  at  Vienna,  had 
entered  into  relations  with  certain  refugees, — the  remnants 
of  some  former  political  jDarties, — a  few  old  Streitsy,  who  had 
miraculously  escaped  the  massacres  of  1698.  Besides  this, 
he  had  kept  up  intercourse  with  some  members  of  the  Tsar's 

^  Herrmann,  Peter  der  Grosse  und  der  Tsarevitch  Alexis  (Leipzig,  1880), 
p.  122. 

-  De  Bie's  Despa'ches,  Jan.  8,  17 17,  Feb.  24,  and  May  ic,  17 18  (Dutch 
Archives) ;  La  Vie  s  Despatch,  Feb.  26,  1718  (French  Foreign  Office). 

*  Solovief,  vol.  .xvii.  p.  216. 


530  PETER  THE  GREAT 

own  circle,  and  was  intimate  with  Poklanovski,  one  of  Peter's 
favourite  Dicnshtchihs,  one  of  those  in  whose  arms  he  habitu- 
ally slept.  Alexis,  just  before  his  flight,  had  an  interview 
with  Abraham  Lapouhin,  one  of  Eudoxia's  brothers,  who 
gave  him  tidint^s  of  the  uniia])py  recluse.  Far  from  conspir- 
ing with  his  mother,  the  poor  j-oung  Tsarevitch  had  not  even 
known  whether  she  was  still  alive.  Learning  her  destitute 
condition,  he  gave  Lapouhin  500  roubles  to  convey  to  her. 
These  facts,  and  some  unseemly  remarks  droj^ped  by  the 
young  Prince  in  moments  of  anger,  or  of  drunkenness,  were 
the  only  points  of  accusation  the  inquiry  revealed  against 
him.  Speaking  of  his  marriage  with  Charhjtte,  he  had  com- 
plained of  his  father's  counsellors,  who  had  bound  him  to  a 
'she-devil,'  and  swore  to  be  avenged  on  them.  Speaking  of 
them,  he  said,  *  I  spit  upon  them  all  I  Long  live  the  common 
people !  When  my  time  comes,  and  my  father  is  no  longer 
here,  I  will  whisper  a  word  to  the  bishops,,  they  will  give  it 
to  the  popes,  and  the  popes  to  their  parishioners,  and  they 
will  call  me  to  rule  whether  I  will  or  not.' 

None  of  this  was  either  very  wicked  or  very  serious,  and 
besides,  when  Alexis  left  Russia,  he  was  firmly  resolved  to 
adhere  to  the  abdication  forced  on  him  by  his  father's  last 
attempts  on  his  independence.  His  depositions  on  this  point 
never  varied,  even  when  he  could  ha\e  had  no  further  object 
in  lying,  or  in  hiding  anj'thing.  Mis  plan,  which  his  own 
weakness  prevented  from  carrying  out,  was  to  remain  abroad, 
and  await  the  death  of  his  father,  after  which,  he  hoped  to 
get  possession  of  the  Regency  during  his  brother's  minority. 

What,  then,  was  the  Tsar's  object  in  putting  the  whole 
machinery  of  justice  into  motion?  Probably  he  scarcely 
knew  himself  Those  long-prepared  designs,  with  which  he 
has  been  credited,  for  drawing  his  unhaj^py  son  into  a  sort 
of  maze  which  should  lead  him  from  mistake  into  mistake, 
and  weakness  to  weakness,  until  his  own  head  was  placed  in 
jeopardy,  are  not  confirmed  by  any  clear  fact,  and  are  con- 
tradicted by  everything  we  know  of  Peter's  character.^  lie 
was  not  at  all  the  man  likely  to  enter  into  such  calculations. 
He  was  most  likely  led  by  events,  and  suited  these  to  his  own 
passions.  He  seemed  satisfied,  in  the  beginning,  with  the 
victims  supplied  by  his  son's  confessions,  aid  by  the  inquiries 

*  Pogodin,  Trial  of  the  Tsarevitch  Alexis,  in  'he  Kousskdia  Bii'ssicda,  i860, 
vol.  i.  pp.  i-i  10. 


THE  OPPOSITION— THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       531 

which  he  extended  to  the  convent  at  Souzdal.  Kikin  re- 
ceived twenty-five  blows  with  the  knout,  on  four  different 
occasions,  and  was  finally  broken  on  the  wheel.  Afanassief, 
whose  only  guilt,  poor  wretch,  was  that  he  had  listened  to 
his  master's  confidences,  had  his  head  cut  off.  The  fate  of 
Eudoxia  and  Glebof  has  already  been  described.  Dolgorouki 
and  Viaziemski,  whom  xAlexis  specially  charged,  escaped,  on 
account,  probably,  of  his  insistence,  with  their  lives  ;  their 
goods  were  confiscated ;  they  were  dismissed  from  their 
offices,  and  exiled.  Dositheus,  Bishop  of  Rostof,  acknow- 
ledged that  he  had  foretold  Peter's  approaching  death,  and 
the  accession  of  his  son,  to  the  ex-Tsarina.  But  he  addressed 
these  significant  words  to  the  arJiireis  gathered  togethci  in 
solemn  assembly  to  pronounce  his  degradation  : — '  Look  into 
all  your  own  hearts,  carry  your  ears  into  the  midst  of  the 
people,  and  repeat  what  you  hear  ! '  He,  too,  w'as  broken  on 
the  wheel,  with  one  of  his  priests.  The  heads  of  the  executed 
persons  were  set  on  pikes,  and  their  entrails  were  burnt. 
Poklanovski  lost  his  tongue,  his  ears,  and  his  nose  ;  Princess 
TrouTekourof,  two  nuns,  and  a  large  number  of  gentlemen, — 
one  of  them  a  member  of  the  Lapouhin  family,  recently 
returned  from  England, — were  knouted.  That  merry  gossip, 
Princess  Ailastasia  Galitzin,  who  had  kept  silence  after  the 
Abbess  of  Souzdal  had  informed  her  of  the  relations  between 
Eudoxia  and  Glebof,  escaped  the  knout,  but  she  was  beaten 
v/ith  '  the  sticks.'  Peter  forced  his  son  to  be  present  at  the 
executions,  which  lasted  three  long  hours,  and  then  carried 
him  away  to  St.  Petersburg. 

Alexis  believed  himself  out  of  the  wood,  and  was  more 
than  contented  with  his  own  fate.  Adversity  had  hardened 
his  heart.  He  had  no  feeling  left  for  any  one  but  his 
I'Aiphrosine.  He  wrote  to  tell  her  that  his  father  treated 
iiim  perfectly  well,  and  had  invited  him  to  his  own  table, 
and  expressed  his  satisfaction  at  having  got  rid  of  the  title 
of  heir-apparent. 

'  We  have  never  thought,  as  well  thou  knowest,  of  any- 
thing but  living  peacefully  at  Roshestvienka.  To  he  with 
thee,  and  in  peace,  until  I  die,  is  my  sole  desire.'^  Tliis  letter 
may  possibly  have  been  written  with  an  eye  to  the  Secret 
Police,  but  he  was  certainly  more  bent  than  ever  on  marrying 

'  Quoted  hy  Kostomarof  ( The   Tsarcvilch  Alexis,  in  Russia,  Old  a?iJ  Ncw^ 
1S75,  Jan.,  Feb.).      It  does  not  appear  in  Ouslrialof's  work. 


532  PETER  THE  GREAT 

his  mistress.  Before  his  departure  from  Moscow,  he  had 
cast  himself  at  Catherine's  feet,  aiifl  entreated  her  to  favour 
his  union. 


VI 

Euphrosine's  arri\al  at  St.  Petersburg  on  the  15th  of 
.April  17 1 8,  roused  general  curiosit)',  swiftly  transformed 
into  a  stupor  of  astonishment.  Could  this  possibly  be  the 
person  with  whom  the  Tsarevitch  was  so  desperately  in 
love?^  The  lady  was  shut  up  in  the  fortress,  she  underwent 
a  certain  amount  of  examination,  and  then,  suddenK-,  a 
story  went  about  that  the  Tsarevitch  had  been  arrested. 
Up  till  that  time  he  had  remained  at  liberty,  lived  in  a  house 
close  beside  the  Palace,  and  enjoyed  a  pension  of  40,000 
roubles.-  Had  the  girl's  depositions  brought  new  facts  to 
light?  None,  so  far  as  we  are  aware.  The  Tsarevitch, 
when  at  Ehrenberg,  had  written  to  his  Russian  friends,  to 
the  Senate  and  the  Bishops,  to  recall  himself  to  their  recol- 
lection, and  he  had  also  written  to  beseech  the  Emperor's 
protection.  He  had  spoken  of  a  mutiny  amongst  the  Russian 
troops  quartered  in  Mecklenburg,  of  disturbances  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Moscow,  and  rejoiced  over  the  news,  which 
had  appeared  in  the  gazettes.  At  Naples,  he  had  continued 
his  correspondence  and  his  unseemly  remarks.  He  had 
declared  his  intention,  when  he  came  to  power,  of  leaving 
St.  Petersburg,  spending  his  winters  at  Moscow,  and  his 
summers  at  laroslav,  of  getting  rid  of  all  the  ships,  and  only 
keeping  enough  troops  for  the  defence  of  the  country.  When 
he  heard  of  the  illness  of  the  little  Prince  Peter  Petrovitch, 
he  had  said  to  his  mistress,  '  Thou  seest,  my  father  does  as 
he  chooses,  and  God  does  as  He  wills  ! '  Einally,  when  he 
saw  the  P^mperor  had  forsaken  him,  he  had  thought  of 
placing  himself  under  the  protection  of  the  Pope. 

All  this  was  mere  repetition  ;  and  Peter  himself  was  so 
thoroughly  convinced  of  it,  that  he  did  not  cause  Alexis  to 
be  arrested  for  fully  two  months.  The  Prince  was  examined, 
doubtless,  during  the  interval,  as  to  the  details  supplietl  by 
his  mistress,  and  his  examination  may  ha\e  been  combined 
with  those  coercive  methods  his  father  so  currently  employed. 

*  De  Bie  to  the  .States-General,  April  29,  17 18  (Dutch  Archives). 
^  Sbornik,  vol.  xxxiv.  p.  331. 


THE  OPPOSITION— THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       533 

lie  accompanied  the  Tsar  to  Pcterhof,  in  May,  and  the 
expedition  was  certainly  no  pleasure  party.  Some  time 
later,  one  of  Count  Moussin  Poushkin's  peasants  was  con- 
demned to  the  galleys,'  for  having  related  that  when  the 
Tsarevitch  had  accompanied  the  Sovereign  to  his  countr}^ 
residence,  he  had  been  taken  to  a  lonely  outhouse,  whence 
screams  and  sobs  had  been  heard  to  issue.^  However  that 
may  have  been,  Alexis  preserved  his  liberty,  till  the  14th 
of  June. 

On  the  eve  of  that  day,  Peter  convoked  a  fresh  meeting  of 
lay  and  ecclesiastic  dignitaries,  to  whom  he  presented  a 
declaration  appealing  to  them  to  judge  between  himself 
and  his  son,  whose  partial  concealment  of  the  truth  had 
broken  the  agreement  whereby  mercy  was  to  have  been 
shown  him.  The  Sovereign  had  evidently  contrived  to 
make  Euphrosine's  depositions  a  pretext  for  reopening  the 
trial  which  had  been  nominally  brought  to  a  close  at 
Moscow.  But  why  did  he  seek  such  a  pretext  ?  Perhaps 
he  had  become  aware  of  the  dangers  arising  out  of  the 
ex-heir's  position,  fie  had,  at  a  previous  period,  declared 
such  a  position  inadmissible.  But  perhaps,  too,  he  simply 
}'ielded  to  the  horrible  charm  of  the  murderous  procedure  he 
was  tempted  to  set  in  fresh  motion.  Willingly  would  I 
believe  that  he  himself  had  been  caught  in  the  wheels ! 
His  inquisitorial  tastes,  his  instincts  as  a  despot,  and  a 
merciless  judge,  were  all  excited.     He  thirsted  for  blood. 

The  clergy,  who  formed  part  of  the  Court  to  which  he 
had  appealed,  were  sorely  put  to  it.  After  five  days,  they 
got  out  of  the  difficulty  by  appealing,  turn-about,  to  the 
Old  Testament  and  to  the  New.  The  Old  Testament  con- 
tained precedents  for  the  punishment  of  a  guilty  son  by  his 
father  ;  others,  more  merciful,  appeared  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. There  was  the  story  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  and  of  the 
woman  taken  in  adultery.  The  Senate  demanded  further 
information.  This  doubtless  was  the  answer  Peter  desired. 
It  was  Alexis'  death-knell.  Never  again  was  the  terrible 
machinery  of  suffering  and  death  to  relax  its  hold  upon  its 
pre}' ! 

Alexis  appeared  once  more  before  the  Court,  with  no 
further  result  than  a  confirmation  of  his  former  confessions. 
It  was  the  same  dull  and  monotonous  history  of  intercourse 
'  Messager  JRtisse,  1861,  No.  21. 


534  PETER  THE  GREAT 

\\ith  the  partisans  of  the  old  regime^  and  of  hopes  common 
to  him  and  to  them.  On  the  19th  of  June,  the  Tsarevitch 
was  put  to  the  torture,  for  the  first  time.  Fivc-and-twcnty 
blows  with  the  knout  extorted  a  fresh  confession.  He  had 
desired  his  father's  death.  He  had  confided  this  to  his 
Confessor,  who  had  replied,  'God  for;:^i\e  thee,  we  all  desire 
it!'  Ignatiefs  examination  confirmed  this  deposition.  But 
this,  after  all,  was  only  a  guilty  thought.  It  was  not  enough. 
Three  days  later,  the  Tsarevitch  was  confronted  with  three 
questions,  '  Why  had  he  disobeyed  his  father  .'  How  was  it 
he  had  not  been  deterred  by  fear  of  the  chastisement  he 
must  have  expected  ?  Why  had  he  thought  of  obtaining 
his  paternal  inheritance  b)'  illegitimate  means?'  Alexis, 
from  that  moment,  lost  his  footing  in  the  chasm  he  felt 
yawning  beneath  him.  He  had  only  one  care, — to  shield 
Euphrosine.  We  are  told  he  was  confronted  with  her,  and 
heard  her  speak  accusing  words,  which  proved  her  false  to 
his  love.  No  matter,  he  loved  her — he  would  love  her 
always,  till  he  died.  He  accused  himself,  and  ever)'body 
else,  and  steadily  refused  to  implicate  her.  She  had 
known  nothing,  she  had  done  nothing, — save  give  him  good 
advice,  which,  to  his  misfortune,  he  had  not  followed.  All 
the  pitiful  agony  of  his  soul  shows  in  his  answers,  inspired 
by  this  one  great  anxiety.  '  I  was  brought  up  by  women, 
who  taught  me  nothing  but  h}'pocrisy,  to  which,  in- 
deed, I  was  naturally  inclined.  I  did  not  want  to  work, 
as  my  father  desired  I  should  work.  Viaziemski  and 
Naryshkin,  in  their  turn,  only  encouraged  me  to  gossip  and 
get  drunk  with  popes  and  monks.  Menshikof  was  the  only 
person  who  advised  me  well.  So  by  degrees,  not  only 
ever}'thing  about  my  father,  but  his  very  person,  became 
odious  to  me,  and  my  stay  in  foreign  countries,  whither  my 
father  sent  me  for  my  own  good,  did  not  suffice  to  cure  me. 
It  was  my  own  wicked  nature  which  prevented  me  from 
fearing  his  just  wrath.  Since  my  childhood,  I  have  been  far 
from  the  right  path,  and  as  I  would  not  follow  my  father,  I 
was  obliged  to  seek  my  way  elsewhere.' 

TolstoT,  who  was  acting  as  Examining  Judge,  was  not 
satisfied  with  these  recantations.  He  wanted  something 
more  precise,  some  peg  on  which  a  trial  might  be  hung.  At 
last  he  succeeded  in  making  the  unhappy  Prince  acknow- 
ledge '  that  he  would  have  accepted  the   Emperor's  help  to 


THE  OPPOSITION— THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       535 

conquer  the  Crown  by  main  force*  But  when  asked  wliether 
this  help  had  been  offered  him,  lie  answered  'No.'  AiTd  so 
the  inquiry  came  back  to  its  original  point  of  departure. 
Guilty  intention  there  may  have  been,  and  criminal  thoughts, 
but  not  a  single  act.  Something  had  to  be  done.  On  the 
24th  of  June,  there  was  a  fresh  visit  to  the  torture-chamber, 
and  fifteen  blows  with  the  knout,  which  brought  forth  nothing. 
The  accused  had  felt  great  confidence  in  the  turbulent 
Bishop,  Stephen  lavorski,  but  he  had  never  held  any  con- 
versation with  him.  He  had  been  informed  by  other  persons 
of  the  bishop's  s}'mpathy  with  his  cause.  It  was  hopeless. 
Nothing  more  was  to  be  gained  either  by  the  knout,  or  the 
strappado.     Some  end  must  be  made. 

What  was  that  end  to  be?  There  could  be  no  doubt. 
The  idea  of  having  worked  in  vain  was  not  admissible.  No 
Tsarevitch,  who  had  been  given  over  to  the  hands  of  the 
torturer,  could.be  permitted  to  come  clear  out  of  his  trial, 
and  leave  his  prison,  so  that  all  the  outer  world  might  read 
the  odious  proofs  of  the  paternal  iniquity,  written  on  his  back 
by  the  bloody  thongs.     But  would  Peter  dare  it  ? 

During  his  struggle  with  the  people  of  Novgorod,  Vassili 
Bousslaievitch,  the  legendary  hero  of  the  tenth  century,  lifted 
his  sword  against  his  own  father.  His  mother,  to  restrain 
him,  came  behind  him,  and  laid  hold  of  the  skirts  of  his 
garment.  The  hero  thus  addressed  her, — '  You  are  a  cunning 
old  woman  ;  you  knew  what  to  do  to  overcome  my  mighty 
strength  !  Had  you  approached  me  in  front,  my  mother,  I 
would  not  have  spared  you  ;  I  would  have  killed  you  like 
any  Novgorod  Moujik.^  Peter  belonged  to  this  wild  race. 
He  was  the  last  representative  of  that  cycle  of  terrible 
warriors,  and  no  one  stood  behind,  to  stay  his  arm.  In  spite 
of  the  emptiness  of  the  testimony  collected  against  him, 
Alexis  had  grown  to  be  the  very  personification,  in  the  Re- 
former's e\es,  of  that  hostile  party  with  which  he  had  been 
wrestling,  for  the  last  twenty  years.  It  was  no  son,  it  was 
an  adversar\-,  a  rebel,  a  '  Novgorod  Moiijik'  who  stood 
before  the  Tsar.  And  then,  from  Moscow  to  St.  Petersburg, 
the  inquiry  had  already  spilt  a  sea  of  blood  round  the  chief 
culprit.  Twenty-six  women,  and  men  innumerable,  had 
writhed  under  the  lash,  and  laid  their  panting  flesh  on  red- 
hot  bars.  The  miserable  servants,  who  had  followed  Alexis 
abroad, — in  utter  unconsciousness  that  they  were  doing 
35 


536  PETER  THE  GREAT 

anything  exccjit  tlicir  (liit\', — had  been  knouted,  given  the 
strappado,  and  sent  to  Siberia,  because,  so  the  sentence  runs, 
'  it  would  not  have  been  proper  for  them  to  have  been  left  in 
St.  Petersburg.'  For  man)'  months  a  redoubled  reign  of 
terror  had  existed  in  the  Capital.  'There  have  been  so 
many  accusations  in  this  town,'  writes  La  Vie,  in  January 
1718,  'that  it  seems  like  a  place  of  disaster:  we  all  live  in  a 
sort  of  public  infection,  every  one  is  either  an  accuser,  or  an 
accused  person.'  Peter  had  caught  the  infection.  The 
blood  he  had  already  shed  had  risen  to  his  head-  ■ 

A  High  Court  of  Justice,  composed  of  the  Senate,  the 
Ministers,  the  great  officers  of  the  Crown,  and  the  Staff  of 
the  Guard  (the  Clergy,  which  seemed  inclined  to  excuse 
itself,  had  been  dispensed  with),  was  convoked  to  pronounce 
the  .sentence.  There  were  127  judges  ;  every  one  knew  what 
verdict  he  was  expected  to  give,  and  not  one  dared  refuse 
his  vote  to  what  he  guessed  to  be  the  sovereign  will.  One 
single  individual,  a  lieutenant  in  the  Guard,  refused  his  sig- 
nature— but  he  did  not  know  how  to  write.  So  the  trial 
drew  to  its  inevitable  close — the  death-sentence. 

Yet  the  tragedy  was  not  played  out.  There  was  to  be  a 
final  episode,  the  gloomiest  of  all.  one  of  the  darkest  riddles 
in  all  history.  The  verdict  was  not  carried  into  effect. 
Alexis  died  before  his  father  had  made  up  his  mind  whether 
he  would  show  him  mercy,  or  allow  the  law  to  take  its 
course.     How  did  he  die? 


VII 

Here  is  the  official  version :  '  The  Tsarevitch,  wlien 
the  verdict  was  read  to  him,  was  seized  with  a  .sort  of 
apoplexy.  When  he  recovered  his  senses,  he  asked  to 
see  his  father,  confessed  his  faults  in  his  presence,  re- 
ceived his  pardon,  and,  in  a  few  moments,  breathed 
his  last'  Peter,  according  to  documents  emanating  from 
the  same  source,  was  disposed  to  be  merciful,  but,  '  in 
the  midst  of  this  uncertainty  and  distressing  agitation,  it 
pleased  God  Almighty,  whose  holy  judgments  are  always 
just,  to  deliver  the  person  of  the  Sovereign  and  his  Empire 
from  all  fear  and  all  danger,  by  means  of  His  all-divine 
goodness.'     The  Prince's  corpse  was  cxpcsed  for  eight  days, 


THE  OPPOSITION-  THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       537 

and  every  one  was  allowed  to  see  it,  so  that  all  might  per- 
ceive that  he  had  died  a  natural  death.  ^ 

Some  doubt,  we  thus  see,  did  exist,  as  to  whether  the 
Prince's  death  was  natural.  All  other  contemporary  versions 
of  the  event  betray  something  far  beyond  mere  doubt ;  they 
categorically  affirm  the  contrary.  Their  only  disagreement 
is  as  to  the  nature  of  his  violent  end.  The  Imperial  Resident, 
Plej-er,  declares  the  Tsarevitch  was  beheaded  in  his  prison, 
and  Scherer  goes  so  far  as  to  mention  the  name  of  the  execu- 
tioner. General  Weyde.  A  girl  of  the  name  of  Krahmer, 
the  daughter  of  a  townsman  of  Narva,  is  said  to  have  been 
emplo\'ed  to  sew  the  severed  head  to  the  dead  body,  and  thus 
hide  all  traces  of  the  assassination,  which  fact  did  not  prevent 
her  becoming,  in  later  years.  Mistress  of  the  Robes  to  the 
murdered  man's  daughter,  the  Grand  Duchess  Nathalia.  All 
Staehlin  knew  was  that  she  had  been  employed  to  dress  the 
Prince's  corpse,  but  he  could  give  no  other  explanation  of 
her  intervention.'^  Henr)^  Bruce  tells  the  story  of  a  potion 
intended  for  the  Prince,  which  General  Weyde  went  himself 
to  procure  from  a  druggist  named  Behr,  who,  when  he  read 
the  prescription,  turned  deadly  pale.^  The  poison  hypo- 
thesis also  appears  in  a  collection  of  anecdotes  pub- 
lished in  England,*  according  to  which  a  paper,  given  to 
the  Tsarevitch,  on  which  the  judgment  was  written,  was 
impregnated  with  some  deadly  compound.  A  letter  from 
Alexis  Roumiantsof,  of  which  numerous  manuscript  copies 
have  been  circulated,  appears  conclusive.  In  it  the  writer 
relates  to  one  of  his  friends,  Dimitri  Titof,  that  the  Tsare- 
vitch had  perished  by  his  father's  order ;  that  he  had  been 
stifled  with  cushions  ;  and  that  the  will  of  the  Sovereign  had 
been  accomplished  by  Poutourlin,  Tolstoi',  Oushakof,  and 
himself  But  the  authenticity  of  this  document  has  been 
contested,  by  Oustrialof  amongst  others,  and  is  certainly 
doubtful.  De  Bie  and  Villebois  hold  that  the  Prince's  veins 
were  opened  with  a  lancet,  but  they  only  speak  from  hearsa}-. 
The  most  detailed  accounts  are  those  given  by  Lcfort,  then 

^  Memoir  presented  to  the  States  General  on  the  6th  of  August  17 18,  by 
Koiirakin  (Archives  of  the  Hague):  '  The  true  relation  0/ all  that  fmsai  with 
regard  to  the  seyttetice  of  the  Prince  Alexis  and  the  circumstances  of  his  death.' 
1 7 18  (published  officially). 

^  Anecdotes,  p.  322. 

'  Memoirs,  p.  r86.     The  authenticity  of  these  memoirs  is  contested. 

^  A  Select  Collection  of  Singular  Histories.     London,  1774.      \'(il.  ii.  p.  1^3. 


538  PETER  THE  GREAT 

in  the  Tsar's  service,  and  later  hiohly  placed  in  the  Saxon 
Legation,  and  by  Count  Rabutin,  who  subsequently  replaced 
rieyer,  as  the  Emperor's  Resident.  These  only  differ  on 
very  secondary  points.  '  On  the  day  of  the  Prince's  death,' 
sa)'s  Lefort,  'the  Tsar,  accompanied  by  TolstoV,  went  to  the 
fortress,  and  into  one  of  the  vaulted  dungeons,  furnished  with 
gallows,  and  all  the  other  necessary  preparations  for  appl}'- 
ing  the  knout.  The  unhappy  wretch  was  brought  in,  and 
having  been  fastened  up,  he  was  given  numerous  blows  with 
the  knout,  and, — though  I  am  not  sure  of  this, — I  have  been 
assured,  that  his  father  struck  the  first  blf)ws.  The  same 
thing  was  done  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and,  towards 
four  o'clock,  he  was  so  ill-treated  that  he  died  under  the 
lash.'^  Rabutin  is  more  definite  in  his  assertions,  and  he 
mentions  Catherine.  Peter  struck  his  son,  and,  '  as  he  did 
not  know  how  to  use  the  knout,  he  struck  so  hard  that  the 
poor  wretch  fell  swooning  to  the  ground,  and  the  Ministers 
thought  he  was  dead.'  But  Ale.xis  had  only  fainted,  and 
when  he  recovered,  Peter  said  angrily,  as  he  moved  away, 
'The  Devil  will  not  take  him  yet!'  He  evidently  intended 
to  recommence  the  process.  But  Catherine  spared  him  that 
trouble.  Hearing  the  Prince  was  recovering,  she  took  counsel 
with  Tolstoi,  and  sent  the  Court  physician.  Hobby,  to  the 
prisoner,  to  open  his  veins.  Peter,  when  he  was  informed 
of  what  had  occurred,  came  to  look  at  the  corpse,  shook 
his  head  as  if  he  susj:)ccted  what  had  happened,  but  said 
nothing.^ 

This  testimony  has  the  merit  of  its  ghastly  agreement 
with  a  most  indubitably  reliable  document,  the  Journal 
of  the  St.  Petersburg  garrison,  daily  posted  up,  in  the 
very  fortress  within  which  the  tragedy  was  played  out.* 
In  it  the  following  details  appear:  'On  the  14th  of 
June,  a  special  torture-chamber  was  arranged  in  the  Trou- 
betzkoY  Bastion,  in  a  casemate  close  to  the  dungeon  in  which, 
on  that  same  day,  the  Tsarevitch  had  been  shut  up.  On  the 
19th,  two  visits  were  paid  to  this  chamber,  the  first  from 
noon  to  one  o'clock,  and  the  second  from  six  to  nine  o'clock 
in  the  evening.  The  following  day  a  third  visit  was  paid, 
from  eight  till  eleven,  and  on  the   24th,  two  more,  one  from 

*  Herrmann,  Geschichte  Russlavds,  vol.  iv.  p.  330. 

*  /liischitts^s-Maqazifi,  vol.  xi.  p   4S7. 

3  I'rcserved  in  tlie  library  of  the  '  .Academic  des  Science-.,'  at  St.  PctcrsUurg. 


THE  OPPOSITION— THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       539 

ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  till  noon,  and  the  other  from  six 
till  ten  o'clock  at  night.  On  the  26th,  there  was  yet  another 
sitting,  in  the  Tsar's  presence,  from  eight  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing till  eleven  ;  and  that  same  day,  at  six  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  the  Tsarevitch  died.' 

Thus  on  one  point,  at  all  events,  we  have  an  evident  cer- 
tainty. Even  after  his  condemnation,  Alexis  was  tortured  ; 
and  in  this  matter  indeed,  his  tormentors  only  adhered  to 
the  usual  errors  of  the  criminal  procedure  of  the  period.^ 

But,  that  being  so,  it  is  not  easy  to  understand,  in  the  first 
place,  why  Peter  or  Catherine  should  have  had  recourse  to 
other  methods  to  hasten  their  victim's  end,  for  which  the 
knout  ampK'  sufficed  ;  and  in  the  second,  the  h\'pothesis 
that  the  Tsarevitch's  death  was  hastened  by  an  immoderate 
use  of  torture,  acquires  a  great  deal  of  likelihood.  Thousands 
of  analogous  cases  are  to  be  found  in  the  judicial  annals  of 
the  period,  and  Ale.xis,  as  we  know,  must  have  been  any- 
thing but  a  tough  subject.  So  early  as  17 14,  he  had,  accord- 
ing to  De  Bie,  sufTcred  from  a  sort  of  apoplexy,  which  had 
attacked  his  left  side.^  To  conclude,  the  sudden  nature  of 
the  end,  and  the  probable  intervention  of  some  element  of 
violence,  whether  steel,  or  poison,  or  excessive  torture,  seems 
placed  beyond  all  doubt,  by  a  very  significant  incident. 
De  Bie's  report  of  the  catastrophe,  which,  like  that  of  Ple}'er, 
was  intercepted  by  the  Russian  Government,  brought  very 
tr\-ing  disfavour  on  its  author,  and  even  resulted  in  a  some- 
what aggressive  violation  of  his  domicile,  and  his  d'iplomatic 
position.  The  information  he  had  collected  was  made  the 
subject  of  a  special  inquiry,  which  principally  turned  on  the 
following  fact.  A  carpenter  of  the  name  of  Boless,  the  son- 
in-law  of  a  Dutch  mid-wife,  named  Maria  van  llusse,  was 
employed  in  the  fortress,  while  the  Tsarevitch  was  imjjrisoned 
there.  All  the  Prince's  food  was  cooked  in  this  man's  house. 
The  day  after  Alexis'  death,  this  carpenter's  wife  told  her 
mother,  who  repeated  the  story  to  the  Resident's  wife,  that, 
on  the  previous  day,  the  Tsarevitch's  meal  had  been  served, 
as  usual,  at  twelve  o'clock.  She  herself  had  seen  the  dishes, 
which  did  not  return  from  his  presence  intact.     This  detail 

'  Briickner  {Dfr  Tsamvitch  Ah-xci,  p.  221)  points  out  that  there  is  no  express 
mention  of  the  Tsarevitch's  presence  at  the  silling  of  tiie  Torture  Clinniher  on 
the  26th  of  June,  but  I  do  not  think  thai  any  one,  roiding  llie  document,  can 
have  tiie  shglitost  douht  on  tlie  suhjcct. 

*   InlercejHed  despatch,  dated  5tii  .May  17 12.      Moscow  Archives. 


540  PETER  THE  GREAT 

had  ridt  struck  her  as  possessing  any  importance.  That 
given  it  b\-  the  incjuiry  was  very  great,  and  most  expressixc. 
Ikit  the  two  poor  women  maintained  their  general  assertion, 
in  sjjite  of  some  trifling  contradictions,  during  an  examina- 
tion probabl\-  accompanied  b\-  torture,  and  they  ultimately 
recovered  their  liberty.^  If  then,  only  a  few  hours  before  his 
death,  Alexis  was  able  to  take  food,  his  death  must  certainly 
have  been  a  violent  one. 

I  pass  over  the  endless  legends  which  have  given  their 
own  colour  to  the  terrible  story.  The  peasants  long  pre- 
served their  belief  in  the  survival  of  the  Tsarevitch,  whom 
they  supposed  to  have  miraculously  escaped  from  his 
tormentors.  In  1723,  a  false  Alexis  appeared  at  Pskof,  and 
there  was  another  in  1738,  at  laroslaviets.  For  my  part, 
I  am  almost  inclined  to  believe  that  the  material  reality 
of  the  events  which  brought  about  the  disappearance  of  the 
unhappy  Prince,  has  no  very  great  historical  importance. 
Morally  speaking,  all  the  responsibility  lies  on  Peter.  The 
trial,  which  arraigned  a  man  guilt}'  of  mere  intentions,  leaves 
us  in  no  doubt  as  to  the  Tsar's.  He  was  determined  to  get 
rid  of  his  son,  no  matter  how,  and  he  will  bear  that  gloomy 
mark  upon  his  forehead,  to  all  eternity.  His  behaviour  after 
the  event  was  enough  to  put  a  stop  to  any  attempt  at 
apology.  Tlie  Journal  of  the  St.  Petersburg  Garrison,  and 
Menshikof's  own  private  journal,-  give  us  details  as  to  the 
fashion  in  which  the  Sovereign  spent  the  first  days  after 
that  terrible  event,  which  fairly  make  one  shiver.  '  27th 
June  (the  day  after  the  Tsarevitch's  death).  Mass  and  Te 
Deum  for  the  Anniversary  of  the  Battle  of  Poltava,  artillery 
salutes  in  his  Majesty's  presence.  ...  At  nine  o'clock  in 
the  evening,  the  body  of  the  Tsarevitch  was  removed  from 
the  Troubetzkof  Bastion  to  the  Governor's  house.' 

'28th  June. — At  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  rcmoxal  of 
the  body  of  the  Tsarevitch  to  the  Church  of  the  Trinity,  in 
which  it  was  exposed.' 

'  29th  June. — His  Majesty's  fete  -  day.  'Launch  at  the 
A  .hnira]t\-  of  a  newly-built  ship,  the  "  Licsna,"  constructed 
after  His  Majesty's  plans.      His  Majesty  and  all  his  Ministers 

'  See  the  result  of  this  inquiry  in  Oustiialof,  vol.  vi.  p.  2S9.  De  Bic,  on  his 
side,  confiimed  his  own  report  (Exhibidon,  dated  Sth  Auj^ust  171S,  .Archives 
of  the  I  iague'. 

-  Preserved  in  the  Imperial  .Archives. 


THE  OPPOSITION— THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       541 

were  present  at  the  ceremon}' ;  tliere  was  great  vicrry- 
makiJig! 

Pleyer  also  speaks,  in  his  despatches,  dated  4th  and  8th 
July,  of  a  dinner  given,  on  the  same  occasion,  at  the  Summer 
Palace,  and  followed  by  an  evening  entertainment,  and  a 
display  of  fireworks.  When  the  members  of  the  Diplomatic 
Body  inquired  as  to  what  mourning  they  should  put  on,  the 
Chancellor  replied,  that  none  was  to  be  worn,  as  the  Prince 
had  died  guilty.  And  the  Imperial  Resident  affirms  that 
though  Catherine  showed  some  signs  of  sorrow  during  these 
disgraceful  rejoicings,  Peter's  cheerfulness  never  abated. 
Even  this  final  insult  was  not  spared  in  the  lamentable  fate 
to  which  Eudoxia's  son  was  doomed, — a  very  abyss  of  mis- 
fortune, which  we  can  readily  conceive  to  have  inspired  the 
deepest  and  most  poignant  expressions  of  feeling,  in  poetry 
and  art.  Kostomarof's  very  curious  study  is  accompanied 
by  a  reproduction  of  the  work  of  a  famous  Russian  painter — 
Peter  laying  Eiiphrosines  depositions  before  his  son. 

What  became  of  the  mistress  ?  In  spite  of  all  affirmations 
to  the  contrary,  she  certainly  received  the  price  of  her 
treachery.  She  was  present  when  the  Tsarevitch's  posses- 
sions were  inventoried,  and  herself  received  a  goodly  share  of 
them.^  Pleyer  declares  that  the  Tsar  and  Tsarina  showed 
her  a  great  deal  of  kindness,  and,  according  to  other  con- 
temporary testimony,  she  married  an  officer  of  the  St. 
Petersburg  Garrison,  with  whom  she  spent  another  thirty 
years,  in  peace  and  plenty.- 

Peter's  spirits  never  flagged.  On  the  ist  of  August  1718, 
a  month  after  the  catastrophe,  in  a  letter  to  his  wife,  written 
from  Revel,  he  refers  to  the  event  with  visible  contentment, 
and  in  a  somewhat  sportive  manner,  claiming  to  have  dis- 
covered graver  accusations  against  the  dead  man  than  any 
which  had  yet  come  to  light.  Alexis,  he  declared,  had 
endeavoured  to  enter  into  relations  with  Charles  Xli.^  At 
the  close  of  the  year,  a  medal  was  struck,  by  the  Tsar's 
orders,  which  bore  an  Imperial  crown  floating  in  the  air,  and 
bathed  in  rays  of  sunlight,  streaming  through  the  clouds. 
Below  the  device  this  inscription  appeared  : — '  The  horizoti 
has  cleared  / ' 

'  Oustrialof,  vol.  vi.  p.  571. 

*   /luschiiti^s-Mm^azin,  vol.  xv.  p.  235. 

'  Solovief,  vol.  xvii    p.  232. 


542  PETER  THE  GREAT 

\cs\  Peter  had  cleared  his  horizon,  with  a  thunder-clap, 
lie  liad  beheaded  the  h)-dra  of  opposition  ;  he  had  broken 
the  spirit  of  his  subjects,  under  a  terror  yet  more  mi<j^ht\-  than 
that  with  which  the  trial  of  the  Strcltsy  had  inspired  them, 
and  he  had  joj'fully  taken  up  his  course.  Although  that 
dreary  trial  had  not  put  an  actual  stop  either  to  his  usual 
avocations,  or  his  pleasures,  both  had  been  slightly  inter- 
rupted. Between  the  21st  of  April  and  the  21st  of  June, 
only  twenty-one  Ukases  appeared,  and  not  a  single  one  was 
published  between  the  9th  and  the  25th  of  May;  ^  while  such 
publications,  as  a  general  rule,  were  of  daily  occurrence. 
The  dose  should  be  doubled  now ;  he  could  legislate  in 
safety.  He  had  much  more  chance  of  being  obeyed  than  in 
the  past ! 

But  he  had  stirred  up  public  opinion — outside  his  own 
country,  at  all  events — and  he  never  succeeded  in  deceiving 
it,  in  spite  of  his  huge  expenditure  of  official  apologies,  mani- 
festos, 'faithful  and  authentic  relations,'  and  liberally-paid 
articles  in  various  gazettes.  Forty  years  later,  he  was  sorely 
to  try  the  conscience  of  the  least  scrupulous  of  European 
political  writers.  In  a  confidential  letter  to  D'Alembcrt, 
Voltaire  wrote  the  following  words:  —  'The  Tsar  Peter 
plagues  me ;  I  do  not  know  how  to  take  that  matter 
about  his  son.  I  cannot  think  that  any  prince  deserves  to 
be  killed  for  having  travelled  about,  when  his  father  was 
doing  the  same  thing,  and  for  having  lived  with  a  woman 
of  bad  character,  while  his  father  had  the  .  .  .'  He  was  less 
explicit  in  his  communication  to  the  Count  Shouvalof.  He 
undertook  to  refute  Lambcrty's  view,  by  means  of  certain 
favourable  documents,  substituted  for  others  possessing  less 
of  that  quality  ;  yet,  he  declared,  he  could  not  take  sides 
against  Alexis  without  laying  himself  open  to  the  charge  of 
being  a  '  basely  partial '  historian — and,  carried  away  by  his 
polemic  fervour,  he  wrote  the  following  magnificent  plea  for 
the  accused  : — 

'  After  four  months  of  a  criminal  trial,  this  unhapjn'  prince 
was  forced  to  write,  that  if  a  powerful  revolt  had  been  raised, 
and  he  had  been  appealed  to,  he  would  have  put  himself  at 
its  head.  When  was  such  a  declaration  ever  taken  to  have 
any  real  or  valid  weight  in  any  trial?  When  was  judgment 
ever  pronounced  on  a  thought,  an   h)'pothesis,  a  supposed 

1  ColUtted  J.a-iva,  iii.   193;  iii.  211. 


THE  OPPOSITION— THE  TSAREVITCH  ALEXIS       543 

case,  which  never  came  into  existence  ?  Where  are  these 
rebels?  V\  ho  took  up  arms?  VV'ho  proposed  that  the 
Prince  should  place  himself  one  day  at  the  head  of  the 
revolt  ?  To  whom  did  he  mention  the  subject  ?  With 
whom  was  he  confronted  on  this  important  point?  Let 
us  not  deceive  ourselves !  When  I  tell  this  story,  I  shall 
appear  before  the  whole  of  Europe.  You  may  be  very  sure, 
Sir,  that  there  is  not  a  man  in  Europe  who  believes  the 
Tsarevitch  died  a  natural  death.  Men  shrug  their  shoulders 
when  they  are  told  that  a  prince  of  thice-and-twenty  died 
of  an  apoplexy,  on  hearing  a  sentence  which,  he  might 
reasonably  hope,  would  not  be  carried  into  effect.  And  any 
communication  to  me  of  documents  bearing  on  this  fatal 
subject  has  been  carefully  avoided  at  St.  Petersburg.'^ 

Long  years  after  his  death,  then,  the  unhappy  Alexis 
found  the  most  eloquent  of  advocates,  and  Peter,  a  m.ost 
formidable  accuser.  A  perusal  of  the '  History  of  Russia'  docs, 
unfortunately,  convince  us  that  Count  Shouvalof  ultimately 
found  (not  in  the  St  Petersburg  Archives,  certainly)  argu- 
ments which  shook  Voltaire's  conviction,  and  changed  his 
views.  But  the  counsel's  address  and  formal  accusation  still 
remain.  They  will  be,  to  all  eternity,  the  expression  of  the 
public  conviction  with  regard  to  the  great  trial,  and  Peter 
must  bear  that  burden  to  the  end  of  time. 

I  willingly  acknowledge  that  he  was  not  the  man  to  totter 
beneath  it. 

He  killed  his  son.  For  that  step  there  is  no  possible  justi- 
fication. I  have  rejected,  and  do  still  reject,  the  argument 
of  a  political  necessity,  brought  forward  by  his  defenders. 
One  single  fact  is  its  sufficient  answer.  Peter  would  not 
have  this  son  to  be  his  heir.  To  whom,  then,  did  he  leave 
his  inheritance?  To  utter  uncertainty.  A  Court  intrigue 
threw  it  into  Catherine's  hands,  and  for  half  a  century  Russia 
was  a  prey  to  adventurers  and  to  chance.  It  was  for  this 
that  the  great  man  set  his  executioners  to  work. 

Yet  a  great  man  he  was,--and  he  made  Russia  a  great 
country.     Herein  lies  his  sole  excuse. 

^  Voltaire's  Works,  vol.  xii,  p.  255. 


CHAPTER     IX 
peti;r  the  great's  last  will — co^'CLUsION 

I.   Peter's  dcatli. 

II.  The  great  man's  apocryphal  Will,  and  his  real  Will. 
III.  General  survey. 


It  was  all  very  well  for  Peter  to  hold  the  posthumous 
vengeance  of  history  cheap.  His  treatment  of  Alexis 
was  swiftly  avenged  by  fate.  I  do  not  believe  that, 
when  the  Sovereign  doomed  his  eldest  son  to  death, 
he  imitated  Abraham,  and  sacrificed  his  own  flesh  and 
blood  for  the'  sake  of  the  future  of  his  country,  and 
the  salvation  of  his  work.  This  idea  is  disproved  by 
the  heedlessness,  the  reasons  for  which  I  have  already 
detailed  (see  page  460),  apparent  in  his  subsequent  con- 
ception, short-sighted,  though  powerful,  of  surrounding 
circumstances,  and  especially  by  that  condition  of  self- 
absorption  in  which  he  lived,  which  made  him  incapable  of 
taking  any  interest  in,  or  even  comprehending,  a  future  in 
which  he  himself  would  have  no  part.  Yet,  once  in  posses- 
sion of  the  heir  he  had  himself  chosen,  he  must  naturally 
have  taken  delight  in  the  idea  of  spending  the  leisure 
granted  him  by  the  cessation  of  the  war,  in  shaping  the  body 
and  mind  of  the  child  of  his  affections,  according  to  his  own 
dream.  He  was  most  tenderly  attached  to  this  younger  boy. 
But  on  the  i6th  of  April  1619.  less  than  a  year  after  the 
death  of  his  elder  brother,  death  knocked  at  the  Tsar's  door, 
and  little  Peter  Petrovitch,  Catherine's  son,  was  carried  off. 
after  a  few  days'  illness.  The  heir,  now,  must  be  the  second 
Peter,  the  son  of  Charlotte,  and  of  the  murdered  Tsarevitch, 
At  first  Peter  seemed  to  rebel  against  this  death-.sentence. 
which  appeared  an   answer  to  his  own. —  and  all  his   circle. 


PETER  THE  GREAT'S  LAST  WILL— CONCLUSION     545 

Catherine  and  Menshikof  in  particular,  must  ha.ve  been 
equally  enraged.  Yet  the  Sovereign  let  two  years  slip  by 
without  taking  any  step.  It  was  not  till  the  i  ith  of  February 
1722,  that  a  Manifesto  appealed  to  the  authority  of  Ivan 
Vassilevitch,  in  sanction  of  the  Tsar's  claim  to  regulajte  the 
succession  according  to  his  own  will.  This  was  the  principle 
of  the  Pravda  voli  vwnarslici  (the  truth  of  the  Sovereign  will), 
the  doctrine  of  which  was  simultaneously  brought  forward  in 
a  famous  document  penned  by  Feofan  Prokopovitch.  But 
any  practical  sanction  of  this  theory  was  vainly  awaited  all 
through  the  following  years.  The  only  sign  the  Tsar  vouched 
was  somewhat  vague,  and  variously  interpreted.  I  refer  to 
Catherine's  coronation. 

Meanwhile,  the  ruler's  health  had  begun  to  alarm  those 
about  him.  So  early  as  May  1721,  Lefort  speaks  of  an 
asthma,  which  caused  the  Sovereign  great  suffering,  and  he 
was  also  believed  to  have  an  internal  abscess.  '  Besides  these 
ailments,'  adds  the  Diplomat,  'a  fresh  one  supervened  at 
Riga,  which  would  soon  have  brought  matters  to  a  close, 
and  which  was  really  most  unseasonable.  God  only  knows 
its  origin,  but  it  was  noticed  that  one  of  the  hero's  ill-kempt 
jjages  had  the  good  fortune  to  fall  ill  at  the  same  time  as  his 
master.'  ^  The  Tsar  had  been  at  the  point  of  death  for  seven- 
teen hours,  and  though  he  was  barely  recovered,  it  never 
occurred  to  him  to  spare  himself  But  it  was  remarked 
'  that  he  performed  his  devotions  with  much  more  attention 
than  was  usually  the  case,  with  many  inea  culpa  and  genu- 
lle.xions,  and  frequent  bendings  to  kiss  the  ground.' 

Peter's  temperament  was  a  singularly  robust  one,  but  he 
had  always  overstrained  it.  He  had  lived  the  life  of  two, 
and  even  of  three,  men.  In  1722,  in  the  course  of  the 
Persian  campaign,  symptoms  of  kidney  trouble  appeared, 
and  increased  all  through  the  winter  of  1723.  He  would 
hardly  allow  anything  to  be  done  for  him,  and  absolutely 
refused  to  rest.  The  irritation  caused  the  sick  man  by  the 
Mons  affair,  and  by  the  necessity  under  which  he  found  him- 
self of  removing  Menshikof  from  the  head  of  the  War 
Department,  on  account  of  his  constant  peculation,  hurried 
the  progress  of  the  mischief.  And  all  this  time  he  went  on 
making  the  most  excessive  demands  on  his  own  strength. 
He    told    his    doctors    they    were    ignoramuses,    and    drove 

^  Sboriiik,  vol.  iii.  p.  332. 


546  PETER  THE  GREAT 

I^lumcntrost,  a  German,  and  Paulson,  an  Enc^lishman,  who 
both  ur<^cd  moderation,  out  of  liis  presence,  with  blows  from 
his  doubuia.  In  September  1724,  the  diaji^nosis  of  his  com- 
plaint grew  clearer.  He  was  suffering  from  the  stone,  and 
this  was  complicated  by  the  results  of  certain  former  excesses, 
from  which  he  had  never  properly  recovered.  Me  had  violent 
pains  in  the  loins.  There  was  'a  good-sized  stone,'  and, 
some  days  after,  '  fragments  of  corrupt  matter.'  then  tumours 
formed  on  the  thighs,  and  began  to  suj)j)urate.^  Yet  all  this 
did  not  prevent  him  from  going,  in  the  following  month,  to 
insjiect  the  works  of  the  Ladoga  Canal,  where  he  slept  in  a 
tent  on  bitter  cold  nights,  and  plunged  on  horseback  into  the 
half-frozen  swamps.^  This  visit  over,  lie  hurried  to  the  forges 
at  Olonets,  and  thence  to  the  factories  at  Staraia  Roussa, 
where  he  worked  like  an  ordinary  labourer.  Finally,  he  in- 
sisted on  returning  to  St.  Petersburg  by  water  in  the  middle 
of  November.  On  the  way,  near  the  little  town  of  Lahta,  he 
saw  a  boat  aground,  and  the  soldiers  on  board  her  in  a  very 
perilous  position.  He  at  once  went  to  the  rescue,  and 
plunged  up  to  his  waist  in  the  water.  The  crew  was  saved. 
But,  by  the  time  the  Tsar  reached  his  capital,  he  was  in  a 
high  fever,  went  to  his  bed,  and  never  rose  from  it  again.  An 
Italian  doctor,  named  Lazarotti,  suggested  tapping,  but  this 
was  put  off  till  the  23rd  of  January,  and  the  operation,  when 
finally  performed  by  the  PLnglish  surgeon,  Horn,  revealed  the 
hopeless  condition  of  the  patient. 

Peter  died  as  he  had  lived.  He  was  worn  out  by  exertion, 
but  his  last  act  had  been  to  sacrifice  his  duty  as  a  Sovereign. 
to  his  mania  for  using  his  own  hands.  All  the  heroic  ex- 
cess, all  that  was  most  unthinking,  and  ill-proportioned,  in  the 
ubit|uity  of  his  effort,  was  manifested  in  the  closing  incident 
of  his  career.  He  lost  sight,  as  always,  of  the  truth,  that  the 
heroism  of  a  sailor,  and  the  heroism  of  the  head  of  a  great 
Empire,  are  difterent  in  their  nature.  He  saved  a  boat 
indeed,  and  the  lives  of  several  men,  but  he  left  the  great 
ship  and  the  mighty  crew  he  himself  commanded,  in  mortal 
peril.     Who  was  to  replace  him  at  the  helm  ?     No  one  could 

'  Canipredon,  30th  Septemhcr  1724.  Ficnch  Foreign  OfTicc  — Richler,  in 
Ills  //is(oiy  0/ Afi-i/ii  inr  in  A'i4s.\i<i,  vol.  iii.  pp.  84-94,  denies  tlmt  any  of  thcconi- 
plic.ilinns  in  the  Tsar's  illness  !iad  a  syphiliiic  orij;in  ;  hul  llic  only  authority  he 
ajipeals  to  is  Slaelilin's  anetdoles, 

'^  liiograpliy  of  .Municli  :  JJnsc/iiii^s-Afa^tJzitt,  vol.  iii.  p.  401. 


PETER  THE  GREATS  LAST  WILL- CONCLUSION     547 

tell.  He  had  foreseen  nothinq-,  he  had  arranged  nothing, 
and,  he  showed  himself  inca[)able,  in  the  face  of  dcal'i,  of 
that  great  and  crowning  exertion  of  his  will  and  conscience, 
which  his  subjects  had  the  right  to  expect  of  him.  A  few 
days  previously,  they  had  seen  a  sailor  at  his  work  ;  now  all 
they  had  before  them  was  a  mere  ordinary  death-bed.  His 
end  was  that  of  a  devout  son  of  the  Orthodox  Church.  It 
was  not  the  end  of  a  great  Tsar,  l^etween  the  22nd  and  the 
28th  of  January,  he  confessed,  and  received  the  sacraments, 
three  times  over  ;  he  gave  some  signs  of  repentance  ;  he 
dictated  orders  to  open  the  prison  doors.  When  he  received 
the  Last  Sacraments,  with  much  contrition,  he  repeated, 
several  times  over,  '  I  hope, — I  believe.'  But  he  said  not  a 
word  as  to  the  terrible  problem  which  stirred  the  hearts  of  all 
those  who  stood  around  his  dying  bed.  He  was  false  to  the 
principle  affirmed  in  his  Manifesto,  to  the  omnipotence  which 
his  whole  life  had  so  loudly  proclaimed,  and  so  passionately 
defended,  to  his  most  essential  duty.  He  left  no  will.  That 
kind  of  terror  and  moral  weakness  which  had  several  times 
appeared,  in  the  tragic  circumstances  that  marked  his  life, 
would  seem,  in  his  last  great  trial,  to  have  wiped  out  his 
intelligence  and  his  courage.  Campredon  mentions  that 
he  betrayed  great  cowardice.^ 

On  the  27th,  at  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  he  asked  for 
writing  materials,  but  he  could  only  trace  these  words,  '  Give 
back  everything  to — '  The  sentence  was  never  finished,  but 
it  is  yet  another  proof  of  that  summary  and  rudimentary 
fashion  of  settling  the  most  delicate  and  complex  questions, 
which  was  one  of  his  too  frequent  characteristics.  A  little 
later,  he  sent  for  his  daughter  Anne,  and  expressed  his 
intention  of  dictating  his  last  wishes  to  her.  She  hurried  to 
his  bedside,  but  he  was  already  speechless.  And  while  he 
lay  d}ing,  Catherine,  who  was  shedding  floods  of  tears 
beside  his  pillow,  dried  her  eyes  now  and  again,  and  slipped 
into  an  adjoining  chamber,  there  to  discuss^ with  Menshikof, 
Tolstoi"  and  IJoutourlin,  the  methods  and  conditions  of  the 
coup  d'etat,  by  which  the  possession  of  power  was  to  be 
ensured.  At  six  o'clock  on  the  following  morning,  Peter 
drew  his  last  breath,  and,  within  a  few  hours,  a  rt^giuie  of 
mingled  gynecocracy  and  military  oligarchy  was  inaugurated 
in    Russia,  under   the   auspices   of  the   ct-dei'ant   Livonian 

^  Despatch  of  30th  Januaiy  1725.     French  Foreign  Office. 


548  PKTKR  THE  GREAT 

servant-girl.  It  was  tt)  last  till  the  vcr\-  end  of  the  century, 
and  it  was  no  thanks  to  Peter  that  his  work,  and  the  very 
existence  of  his  country-,  were  not  utterly  destroyed  in  the 
course  of  this  long  trial.  The  fortunes  of  Modern  Russia  have 
proved  themselves  superior  to  the  genius  of  their  creator. 

The  death  of  the  great  man  does  not,  indeed,  seem  to 
liave  roused  very  lively  nor  uni\ersal  regret.  On  the  mass 
of  the  public,  the  impression  seems  to  have  been,  to  a  certain 
extent,  that  which  Napoleon,  in  later  years,  thought  his  own 
departure  likely  to  produce.  Russia,  too,  appears  to  have 
said  '  Oiif !'  Count  de  Rabutin  even  speaks  of  'general  re- 
joicings.' ^  Fcofan  Prokopovitch  pronounced  a  lofty  pan- 
egyric, but  the  popular  sentiment  was  more  faithfully  ex- 
j)ressed  in  an  engraving  of  a  satirical  and  ludicrous  nature, 
called  '  The  burial  of  a  cat  by  the  mice.'  '^  I'opular  feeling 
is  frequentl}'  marked  by  such  fits  of  momentar)'  indifference 
and  ingratitude,  and  Russia,  since  those  days,  has  fully  paid 
her  debt  to  the  memory  of  the  most  deserving  and  the  most 
glorious  of  her  children.  That  no  more  heartfelt  tears  than 
Catherine's  should  have  fallen  upon  that  open  tomb,  is 
easily  conceivable ;  there  was  too  much  blood  upon  the 
ground  about  it ! 

II 

Peter  left  no  Will.  I  do  not  overlook  the  existence  of  the 
document  which  has  been  so  freely  circulated,  and  so  copi- 
ously' criticised,  under  that  title.^  But,  apart  from  the  fact  of 
its  possessing  no  immediate  practical  value  (it  contains  a 
far-reaching  programme  for  the  conquest  of  Europe  by 
Russia,  and  no  provision  whatever  for  the  hereditary  trans- 
mission of  the  throne),  the  document  in  question  is  nothing 
but  a  hoax.  I  am  not  a  very  fervent  supporter  of  what  is 
known  as  historical  certainty.  My  faith  has  too  often  wavered, 
when  brought  into  contact  with  the  elements  on  which  such 
certainty  is  generalh'  built.  But,  in  this  case,  the  evidence 
seems  to  rest  on  a  body  of  j)roof  which  defies  all  doubt.  Let 
us  first  take  the  moral  proofs. 

'  liuschitifis- Afagazin,  vol.  xi.  p.  497. 

^  Rovinski,  l^opular  A'ussian  EnaraTWf^s,  vol.  i.  pp.  391-401. 

'  Quite  lately  it  furnished  a  brilliant  newspaper  writer  with  the  thesis  of  an 
arf^unient  as  to  the  d.Tngers  of  the  Franco-Russian  Alliance  {Libre  Parole,  4th 
September  1896). 


PETER  THE  GREAT'S  LAST  WILL-CONCLUSION     549 

Can  you  imagine  a  man  who  died  without  having  endea- 
voured to  foresee,  or  provide  for,  the  immediate  future  of  so 
important  a  succession  as  Peter's,  giving  serious  thought  to 
what  was  to  become  of  Europe,  and  of  Russia,  a  hundred  years 
after  his  own  death?  And  that  not  in  any  vague  fashion,  as 
in  the  vision  of  a  dream, — I  should  have  beHeved  this  pos- 
sible— but  in  the  most  precise  and  methodical  manner,  mark- 
ing out  ever}'  stage  to  be  covered  in  the  journey.  And  what 
stages,  too,  this  strange  route  unfolds  !  and  how  extraordinar)' 
the  point  of  departure  indicated  !  Russia,  we  must  not 
forget,  had,  at  the  moment  of  Peter's  death,  after  eighteen 
years  of  desperate  effort,  vanquished  Sweden,  with  the  assis- 
tance of  a  good  half  of  Europe,  of  Saxony  and  Prussia, 
Denmark  and  England.  She  had  not  even  succeeded  in 
lording  it  over  Poland.  She  had  come  into  collision  with 
Turkey,  and  met  with  disaster.  And  that  was  all.  Y'xQxy  as 
you  may  take  Peter's  imagination  to  have  been,  can  you 
imagine  or  understand  that  he  could  regard  the  conquest  of 
Europe  as  being  in  any  way,  logically  or  m^ithematically, 
deducible  from  this  initial  fact  ? 

And  the  Chevalier  or  the  Chevaliere  D'Eon  ?  My  readers 
know  it  was  he,  or  she,  who  first  communicated  a  copy 
of  this  threatening  document  to  the  Versailles  Cabinet. 
The  publication  of  the  Memoirs  of  this  enigmatic  personage 
by  Gaillardet,  in  1836,  placed  the  general  public  in  posses- 
sion of  this  astounding  revelation.  Where  did  Gaillardet 
find  these  Mem.oirs .'  In  1836,  he  was  five-and-twenty, 
and  had  just  collaborated  with  Dumas  in  writing  '  La 
Tour  de  Nesle.'  Authentic  memoirs  written  b\'  D'Eon 
do  exist  in  the  archives  of  the  Ouai  d'Orsay.  They  have 
nothing  in  common,  I  need  hardly  say,  with  those  which 
have  been  ascribed  to  him,  and  they  do  not  contain  a  trace 
of  any  Will  whatever.  On  the  other  hand,  the  author's  con- 
dition of  mind  strikes  us  as  being  evidently  and  absolutely 
irreconcilable  with  his  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  any 
such  document.  D'Eon  is  rather  opposed,  than  otherwise, 
to  any  arrangement  between  France  and  Russia, — not  be- 
cause he  looks  on  Russia  as  a  dangerous  factor,  but  because 
he  considers  her  an  absolutely  unim.portant  one ! 

I  do  not  know  where  Gaillardet  found  the  Memoirs 
he  has  chosen  to  saddle  on  D'Eon,  or  rather,  I  should  say, 
I  have  a  more  than  shrewd  suspicion.      I   know  where  he 


550  PETER  THE  GREAT 

found  the  famous  Will,  and  here  I  ct>mc  to  m\'  material 
proofs. 

The  first  version  of  this  document  appears  in  a  book,  Tlie 
Policy  and  Progress  of  the  Russian  Pozvcr,  published  in 
Paris,  by  Lesur,  in  the  )'ear  18 1  i.  The  date  of  this  publica- 
tion is  sufficient  j)roof  of  its  character,  and  I  will  add  a  still 
more  striking  detail.  Sir  Robert  Wilson,  who  acted  as 
British  a<;ent  with  the  Russian  arm\',  during  the  campaign  of 
the  following  j-ear,  speaks  of  the  numerous  copies  of  this 
work  which  had  been  fi^und  amongst  the  effects  of  the  Due 
de  Hassano,  the  French  Foreign  Minister.^  In  this  work  the 
Will  was  only  represented  as  a  SnniDiary  of  secret  notes  prs- 
soiied  among  the  private  archives  of  the  Russian  Sovereigns. 
Lesur's  work  was  quickly  forgotten,  and,  until  1836,  l^uropean 
literature  makes  no  further  mention  of  the  prophetic  docu- 
ment. A  comparison  of  certain  passages  in  Villemain's 
'Souvenirs  Contemporains,*  in  Count  Mollien's  'Memoirs,' 
in  the  '  Message  to  the  Senate,'  and  the  '  Memorials  of  St. 
Helena,'  convinced  Berkholz  that  the  author  of  the  Summary^ 
which  Gaillardet  slightlx'  modified  and  converted  into  a  Will, 
was  no  other  than  Napoleon  I.^  I  will  only  add  one  word. 
In  the  course  of  the  discussion  as  to  the  authcnticit)-  of  the 
document,  the  existence  of  any  copy, — whether  furnished  by 
D'Eon  himself,  or  otherwise, — at  the  Ouai  d'Orsay,  has  been 
strenuously  denied.^  This  is  a  mistake.  Such  a  copy  does 
exist,  but  its  position,  and  its  external  appearance,  render 
any  misapprehension  as  to  its  date  and  origin  quite  impos- 
sible. It  is  contemporary  with  the  Second  ICmpirc,  and  the 
Crimean  Campaign. 

The  importance  of  this  discussion  is,  I  am  quite  willing 
to  admit,  very  secondary.  It  has  a  certain  interest,  in  so 
far  as  it  concerns  Peter's  personal  characteristics,  but  it  is 
utterly  valueless,  as  regards  the  arguments  it  furnishes,  from 
the  more  general  point  of  view  of  Russian  power  and  ])olicy. 
Peter  never  wrote  one  line  of  the  document  which  has 
grown  famous  under  his  name.  That  point  seems  to  me, 
historically  speaking,  absolutely  clear.     But  he  did  more  and 

^  Private  Diary,  vol.  i.  p.  258.      London,  1S61. 

^  Napoh'on  I.  Attteur  du  Testament  dc  JWrre  le  Grand,  Brussels,  1863.  See 
also  on  llic  same  subject  Augsbur^er  AUgemeine  Zeitung,  November  1865, 
Nos.  225-227. 

^  Les  Auteiirs  du  Testament  du  Pierre  le  Grand,  Paris,  1877  (anonymous). 


PETER  THE  GREAT'S  LAST  WILL— CONCLUSION     551 

better.  The  first  eleven  paragraphs  of  the  Sininiiary  pub- 
Hshed  in  181 1,  have  been  generally  accepted  as  a  fairly 
exact  statement  of  the  policy  followed  by  Russia,  and  the 
progress  of  her  power,  from  1725  onwards.  This  is  the  great 
man's  real  Will, — a  Will  not  hidden  in  secret  archives,  but 
written  in  the  open  day,  graven  on  the  face  of  the  contem- 
porary world,  with  all  Europe  for  its  witness.  His  Will  was 
in  his  work,  and  on  that  work  I  must  now  cast  a  final  and 
comprehensive  glance. 

Ill 

I  do  not  address  myself  to  this  closing  portion  of  my  task 
without  a  certain  feeling  of  apprehension.  At  the  foot  of 
the  mausoleum  placed  on  the  spot  where,  on  the  day  of  his 
burial,  the  remains  of  the  most  unresting  man  who  ever  trod 
this  earth,  were  rested  for  a  space,  an  ingenious  inspiration  has 
set  the  symbolic  image  of  a  sculptor,  beside  the  unfinished 
figure  his  tool  has  chiselled  in  the  marble.  The  Latin  inscrip- 
tion adds  its  own  commentary,  instinct  with  simple  sincerity  : 
'  Let  the  ancient  heroes  hold  their  peace  ;  Let  Alexander 
and  Caesar  bow  before  him  !  Victory  was  easy  to  men  who 
led  heroes,  and  commanded  invincible  troops,  but  he,  who 
never  rested  till  his  death,  had  subjects  who  were  not  men, 
greedy  of  glory,  skilful  in  the  arts  of  war,  and  fearless  of 
death,  but  brutes,  scarce  worthy  of  the  name  of  man.  He 
made  them  civilised  beings,  though  they  had  been  like  the 
bears  of  their  own  country,  and  though  they  refused  to  be 
taught  and  governed  by  him.'^ 

Ten  years  later,  this  first  judgment  of  posterity  was 
reversed  at  the  tribunal  of  a  judge  whom  we  must  acknow- 
ledge competent.  The  future  Frederick  the  Great,  then 
Prince  Royal  of  Prussia,  thus  wrote  to  Voltaire  : — '  Lucky 
circumstances,  favourable  events,  and  foreign  ignorance,  have 
turned  the  Tsar  into  a  phantom  hero.  A  wise  historian, 
who  witnessed  part  of  his  life,  mercilessly  lifts  the  veil  and 
shows  us  this  Prince  as  possessing  all  the  faults  of  man,  and 
few  of  his  virtues.  He  is  no  longer  that  being  of  universal 
mind  who  knows  ever}'thing,  and  desires  to  sift  all  things  ; 
he  is  a  man,  governed  by  whims  sufficiently  novel  to  give 
them  a  certain    glamour,  and  dazzle  the  onlooker.     He  is 

'  Galilzin,  Memoirs,  p.  118. 
36 


552  PETER  THE  GREAT 

no  longer  that  intrc|)i(l  warrior  who  ncitlier  feared  danger, 
nor  recognised  it,  but  a  mean-spirited  and  timid  prince, 
whose  very  brutaHty  forsook  him  in  seasons  of  peril — 
cruel  in  peace,  feeble  in  war.'  ^ 

I  will  quote  no  further.  The  eternal  quarrel  w  hich  snatches 
the  might)'  dead  from  the  j^eace  of  the  tomb  began  early, 
round  Peter's  august  memory,  and  travelled  far.  In 
foreign  countries,  in  England,  and  even  in  Germany,  and 
notably  in  France,  opinion,  as  expressed  by  Burnett  and 
Rousseau,  Frederick  and  Condillac,  De  Maistre  and  Custine, 
and  down  to  Leroy-BeauHeu,  has  been  unfriendly  to  the 
Tsar.  Ill  Russia,  public  opinion,  and  historical  criticism, — 
which,  more  or  less,  followed  in  its  wake, — have  taken  various 
directions.  At  first,  with  the  feeling  of  suclden  reaction, 
came  a  passionate  glorification  of  that  past  the  Reform  had 
doomed.  This  is  clearly  indicated  in  Boltin's  work.  The 
reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  more  especially  that  of  Catherine  II., 
cut  this  short,  and  Golikof's  book  echoes  the  concert  of  en- 
thusiasm evoked  by  the  great  Empress's  continuation  of  the 
reforms  of  Peter's  reign.  In  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  reactionary  instinct  once  more  ruled,  under  the 
double  influence  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  the  Napoleonic 
Hegemony.  All  revolutionary  enterprises  were  viewed  with 
horror ;  the  national  sentiment  woke  in  Russia,  as  in 
Germany,  and  the  Slavophile  party  rose  in  one  country,  just 
as  the  Germanophile  party  rose  in  the  other.  Peter  and  his 
work  were  both  censured.  Then  there  was  another  sudden 
change.  Opinions  began  to  condense.  Certain  representa- 
tives of  the  Slavophile  school  went  so  far  as  to  modify  and 
diminish  the  severity  of  their  disapprobation.  Peter  was  no 
longer  held  guilty  of  having  turned  Russia  away  from  her 
natural  and  hajipiest  destiny,  by  casting  her  into  the  arms  of 
a  corrupt  and  foreign  civilisation.  His  fault  was  held  to  be, 
that  the  precipitation  and  violence  which  he  himself  had 
rendered  necessary,  had  hurried  on,  and  thus  vitiated  the 
nature  of  an  evolution  which  would  have  been  more 
slowly,  and  more  healthily,  accomplished,  without  his  inter- 
ference. This  is  very  much  the  position  taken  up  by 
Karamzin  in  his  later  )-ears.  If  Peter  had  not  burst  on  his 
country  like  a  whirlwind,  pitilessly  snatching  every  indi- 
genous seed  of  culture  out  of  his  native  soil,  and  replacing 

'  Remusbcrg,  13th  November  1737.     Voltaire's  f'Vorh,  vol.  x.  p.  45. 


PETER  THE  GREAT'S  LAST  WILL— CONCLUSION     553 

them  by  siftings  brought  together  indiscriminately  from 
all  the  corners  of  Europe, — fragments  of  European  speech, — 
rags  of  European  clothing, — remnants  of  European  institu- 
tions,— scraps  of  European  customs, — and  crumbs  from 
European  feasts, — his  work  would  have  carried  neither  fear 
nor  displeasure  to  any  Russian  heart.  But  his  unthinking 
^violence,  his  brutality  and  cynicism,  his  attempt  to  civilise 
his  people  by  dint  of  blows  from  his  heavy  doubina,  inspired 
no  one — save  an  occasional  individual  here  and  there — with 
any  desire  of  instruction,  or  love  of  learning.  The  rest  were 
only  terrified  and  stunned,  and  remained,  for  many  a  year, 
in  motionless  stupor  and  alarm. 

At  a  relatively  recent  period,  a  highl}'-placed  Russian 
official  took  it  into  his  head  to  reward  the  excellent  conduct 
of  his  peasants  by  giving  them  a  school.  The  building 
remained  perfectly  empty.  And  the  founder's  attempts  to 
enforce  attendance,  only  resulted  in  driving  his  dependants 
to  wait  upon  him  in  a  body,  and  sue  for  mercy.  '  Master, 
we  have  always  done  our  duty,  why  will  \'ou  punish  us?' 

This  was  the  idea  of  civilisation  imparted  by  Peter  to  his 
AJoujiks !  ^ 

Reduced  to  these  limits,  the  Slavophile  theory  closely 
approaches  the  view  pretty  generally  adopted  by  Western 
criticism.  I  should  be  disposed  to  acknowledge  its  truth, 
while  den}-ing  Peter's  personal  responsibility,  or  reducing  it, 
at  all  events,  to  the  position  of  a  partial  constituent.  And 
even  as  regards  this  partial  responsibility  he  should,  as  I 
think,  be  granted  the  benefit  of  extenuating  circumstances. 
The  idea  of  the  Man  of  Providence,  or  the  Man  of  Fate,  who 
exercises  an  arbitrary  and  decisive  action  on  the  march  of 
human  events,  and  the  natural  development  of  nations, 
appears  to  me  pretty  generally  abandoned,  now-a-days,  by 
historical  science,  and  relegated  to  the  rank  of  romantic 
fiction.  The  modern  mind  has  become  convinced  of  the 
reality  of  the  collective  forces,  which  surround  the  great  prot- 
agonists of  the  drama  of  human  life,  and  carr)-  them  forward. 
This  reality  is  very  evident  in  the  career,  and  in  the  work, 
of  Peter  the  Great,  tlis  programme  of  reform  was  not  his 
own.  Did  he  stand  alone  in  its  execution  ?  1  see  him 
brought  into  power,  in  the  first  place,  by  a  party,  and  then  I 
see  him  surrounded  by  a  group  of  men,  such  as  Lefort  and 

^  Manionof,  Russian  .Archives  (1S73),  p.  2503. 


554  PETER  THE  GREAT 

Vinnius,  who  inspired  and  directed  his  earh'est  actions.  He 
did  not  even  fetch  these  foreii^ner:>  himself,  out  of  Switzer- 
land and  Holland  ;  he  found  them  under  his  hand,  ready  to 
play  a  part  appropriate  to  their  origin  and  their  natural 
tendency,  waiting  for  their  cue.  And  then  all  his  helpers 
were  not  foreigners.  Kourbatof,  Menshikof,  and  Demidof 
were  all  Russians.  But,  some  will  say,  how  about  the. 
Northern  War,  and  its  influence  on  the  advance  of  the 
reforming  movement?  I  have  already  recognised  it,  and  I 
have  also  been  forced  to  recognise  that  in  this  case  also, 
Peter  followed  a  previous  current.  Long  before  his  time, 
there  had  been  a  Russian  movement  towards  the  Baltic. 
Before  his  time,  too,  Tsars  had  taken  up  arms.  Surely  this 
must  have  been  done  because  they  meant  to  fight?  But, 
again,  how  about  the  personal  character  and  education  of 
the  great  man  ?  I  have  also  taken  these  elements  into 
account,  but  1  have  tried  at  the  same  time  to  indicate  their 
origin.  I  have  pointed  to  the  Sloboda,  where  the  young 
Tsar  received  his  earliest  teaching.  Was  it  Peter  who  set 
the  Faubourg  there,  on  the  very  threshold  of  his  ancient 
capital  ?  1  have  called  my  readers'  attention  to  the  depths 
of  rugged  fierceness,  and  savage  energy,  so  rooted  in  the 
physical  and  moral  nature  of  the  nation  from  which  the 
great  man  sprang.  And  he  did  not  come  into  existence  all 
alone.  Did  not  Menshikofs  character,  in  more  than  one 
feature,  clo.sely  resemble  his?  It  was  almost  the  story  of 
Sosia  over  again !  And  the  others, — Romodanovski  with 
his  fits  of  sanguinary  rage,  and  Sheremetief,  with  his  heroic 
tenacity  of  purpose !  But  for  the  sake  of  argument,  I  will 
suppose  Peter  to  have  been  a  unique  and  solitary  being, 
bursting  upon  the  world  like  an  isolated  phenomenon,  falling 
out  of  the  sky  like  an  aerolite,  carrying  all  the  surrounding 
elements*  with  the  rapidity  of  its  fall  and  the  weight  of  its 
huge  mass.  I  should  still  ascribe  it  to  the  genius  of  the 
people  capable  of  producing  such  phenomena  ;  I  would  call 
up  the  whole  of  the  national  past,  and  on  it  I  would  cast  the 
original  responsibility  of  the  catastrophe.  But  nothing  in 
the  history  of  the  community  in  question,  proves  it  so  easily 
moved,  or  led,  in  a  direction  which  it  has  no  desire  to  seek. 
Russia  has  been  ruled,  since  Peter's  time,  by  two  madmen, 
or  something  very  like  it.  The  country  did  nothing  mad. 
It  scarcely  wandered  from  its  path.     That  path  was  traced 


PETER  THE  GREAT'S  LAST  WILL— CONCLUSION     555 

out  before  Peter's  time,  and  its  direction  has  not  changed 
since  his  departure.  The  Reformer's  work  did  not  cease 
with  the  earthh'  course  of  his  existence.  It  has  continued 
to  develop,  in  spite  of  the  insignificance,  and  the  occasional 
unworthiness,  of  its  direct  inheritors.  It  has  never  altered 
in  character  ;  it  is  still  violent,  excessive  and  superficial.  Is 
any  other  proof  necessary,  to  make  me  recognise  its  origin 
and  descent,  and  proclaim  it  the  child  of  the  whole  Russian 
nation  ? 

Peter,  too,  was  the  man  of  his  own  people,  and  of  his  own 
time.  He  came  at  his  appointed  hour.  One  of  the  popular 
songs  of  that  period,  relates  the  melancholy  sensations  of  an 
obscure  hero,  suffering  from  the  excess  of  strength  he  feels 
within  him,  which  overwhelms  him,  and  which  he  does  not 
know  how  to  employ.  This  is  the  picture,  and  the  plaint,  of 
a  whole  nation.  The  Russia  of  those  da\-s  was  overflowing 
with  just  such  a  superfluity  of  physical  and  moral  energy,  all 
of  it  condemned,  by  the  emptiness  of  public  life,  to  lie  in 
idleness.  The  heroic  days  had  gone  by,  but  the  heroes  still 
lived.  Peter  came,  to  give  them  the  work  they  longed  for. 
Violent  and  brutal  he  certainly  was,  but  let  us  not  forget  that 
he  had  to  do  vrith  very  different  temperaments  from  those  with 
which  we  are  accustomed  to  deal,  with  men  whose  vigour  and 
power  of  endurance  are  almost  inconceivable  to  us.  When 
Bergholz  was  at  Moscow  in  1722,  he  went  to  see  the  execu- 
tion of  three  robbers,  who  had  been  condemned  to  be  broken 
on  the  wheel.  The  eldest  had  died,  after  five  or  six  hours  of 
torture,  but  the  two  others,  who  were  younger,  were  still 
alive,  and  one  of  them  painfully  raised  his  broken  arm  to  pass 
the  back  of  his  sleeve  across  his  nose, — then,  seeing  he  had 
spilt  a  few  drops  of  blood  on  the  wheel  to  which  he  was 
fastened,  he  lifted  his  mutilated  arm  again,  to  wipe  them 
off!^  A  man  served  by  men  of  this  stamp  could  do  many 
things,  and  might  rule  them  to  a  great  extent,  but  any 
attempt  to  run  counter  to  their  natural  inclinations,  instincts 
or  prejudices,  by  gentle  means,  was,  evidentl\',  not  likely  to 
be  crowned  with  success. 

Peter  was  a  cynic  and  a  debauchee.  That  mixture  of 
native  savagery  and  Western  corruption  so  severely  blamed 
by  the  detractors  of  his  work  was  most  espcciall)-  evident  in 
his  own  person.     Whence  did  this  come?     He  was  aflected 

'  Busihings-Magaziu,  vol.  xx.  p.  540. 


556  PETER  THE  GREAT 

by  it,  long  before  his  first  visit  to  foreign  countries.  Eudoxia's 
conjugal  misfortunes,  and  the  triumphs  of  Anna  Mons,  all 
date  before  his  great  journey.  A  step  across  a  rivulet,  at 
the  very  doors  of  the  old  Moscow  Kreml,  brought  the 
young  man  within  the  gates  of  the  German  Faubourg,  where 
unfortunate  fusion  of  foreign  elements  was  already  more 
than  half  accomplished.  It  was  aggravated,  I  will  admit, 
in  his  own  person,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  has  not  the 
example  of  his  splcr.did  virtues  given  his  people  the  means 
of  raising  themselves,  as  he  raised  himself,  above  its  level  ? 

To  conclude,  Peter  was  impatient  and  passionately  violent. 
In  this  respect,  I  am  convinced,  he  was  merely  the  exjjres- 
sion,  in  intellect,  character  and  temperament,  of  a  collective 
condition  of  mind.  His  sudden,  fiery,  and  feverish  activity 
was  a  manifestation  of  a  generally  existing  phenomenon. 
There  is  nothing  astonishing  about  the  fact  that  he  himself 
did  not  exactl}'  realise  that  he  was  a  wave  in  a  rising  tide, 
drawing  other  waves  after  him,  but  himself  borne  forward  b\' 
the  flood,  driven  by  distant  and  incalculable  forces.  This 
mistake  of  his  has  been  shared  by  many  illustrious  imitators. 
Even  the  most  clear-sighted  of  contemporary  witnesses  may 
often  be  deceived.  It  is  far  easier  to  grasp  things  from  a 
distance.  Then  the  flowing  tide,  and  the  march  of  events, 
are  clearly  and  visibl)'  defined.  This  onward  course  is,  to 
my  eyes,  clearly  marked  through  several  centuries.  It  is 
long  delayed,  and  then  hurried  forward  by  a  variety  of 
causes,  completely  independent  of  the  will  either  of  one  or 
of  several  men  ;  and,  for  this  reason,  it  appears  to  me,  indi- 
vidual and  generic  responsibility  should  hardly  be  allowed 
to  enter  into  our  discussion. 

The  sudden  character  taken  on  b}-  the  work  of  evolution 
which,  after  long  years  of  preparation,  carried  Russia — or, 
rather,  brought  her  back — into  the  European  family,  was  the 
inevitable  outcome  of  the  historical  conditions  of  the  country. 
In  the  thirteenth  century,  the  work  of  civilisation  was  sud- 
denly cut  short.  It  was  not  till  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
that  circumstances  smiled  on  the  recommencement  of  the  pro- 
cess, and  then,  finding  the  road  open,  the  stream  naturall)' 
hurried  its  course,  and,  naturally  also,  followed  the  outlets 
(jpen  before  it,  without  any  attempt  to  form  new  and  special 
channels.  The  well-known  phenomenon  of  the  harbour  bar" 
precisely  typifies  this  evLUt. 


PETER  THE  GREATS  LAST  WILL— CONCLUSION     557 

What  thus  occurred  in  Russia,  in  moral  matters,  happens 
there  constantly  in  the  material  world.  Everything,  in  that 
country,  comes  to  pass  suddenly.  The  period  of  active  vege- 
tation is  much  shorter  than  in  neighbouring  countries,  and 
this  fact  has  affected  the  national  methods  of  cultivation. 
No  plough  can  turn  the  soil  till  the  Ma\'  sun  has  shone  upon 
it,  and,  less  than  three  months  afterwards,  the  harvest  must 
be  gathered  in. 

The  same  reason  accounts  for  the  violence  of  the  moral 
evolution  to  which  I  refer.  The  suddenness  of  any  move- 
ment, whether  the  bursting  of  a  dyke  by  the  triumphant 
flood,  or  the  fall  of  an  avalanche  from  the  mountain  side, 
must  alwa}'s  cause  a  considerable  shock.  The  last  reforms 
— those  accomplished  in  Russia  during  the  current  century — 
possessed,  though  in  a  minor  degree,  the  same  characteristic. 
In  certain  portions  of  the  Empire,  the  abolition  of  serfdom 
took  on  the  appearance  of  a  social  cataclysm.  Those  coun- 
tries which  have  been  permitted  to  arrive  at  a  state  of 
superior  civilisation  without  any  great  shock,  or  external 
intervention,  by  means  of  a  slow  internal  process,  and  a 
peaceful  advance  along  the  road  of  progress,  are  speciall)' 
privileged  spots  on  the  surface  of  the  globe.  In  America 
the  process  has  been  a  very  hurried  one.  There  is  little 
chance  of  its  being  carried  out  in  Asia,  or  in  Africa,  without 
a  certain  amount  of  violence. 

I  do  not  deny  that  there  are  certain  drawbacks  to  the 
system  of  making  forced  marches,  in  the  attempt  to  get 
abreast  of  more  favoured  neighbours.  But  there  are  also 
some  objections  to  being  born  a  Kaffir  or  a  Polynesian 
savage. 

A  highly-gifted  writer,  who  has  made  a  study  of  the  con- 
sequences brought  on  Russia  by  Peter's  hasty  procedure, 
has  charged  his  work  with  four  great  faults,  moral,  in- 
tellectual, social,  and  political.^  1  cannot  make  myself 
responsible  for  the  correctness  of  the  calculation,  but  1  am 
willing  to  grant  that,  when  the  Reformer  brought  the  coarse- 
ness of  ancient  Muscov)'  into  such  sudden  contact  with  the 
sceptical  licence  of  V\'estern  countries,  he  gave  birth  to  a 
condition  of  cynicism,  which  was  as  revolting  to  the  old 
Russians  as  to  their  European  neighbours  ;  that  the  violence 
done  his  subjects  b\-  the  severity  (A'  his  laws,  the  indiscretion 

*  Leroy  Bcaulieu,  L' iDiil-ire  dcs  Tsars  (i'aris,  1S90),  vol.  i.  p    270,  etc. 


S58  PETER  THE  GREAT 

of  his  rc^cjulations,  and  the  cruelty  of  his  punishments,  ended 
by  teachinij  them  h}pocrisy  and  meanness,  and  that,  when 
he  trampled  with  such  utter  disdain  on  the  traditions,  the 
institutions,  and  even  the  prejudices  of  his  country,  he 
brought  about  a  mental  condition  which  was  the  not  un- 
natural forerunner  of  modern  Nihilism.  This  is  the  moral 
drawback  of  his  work.  Further,  I  am  willing  to  admit  that 
the  too  rapid  and  excessive  development  of  the  faculties  of 
assimilation  may,  from  the  intellectual  point  of  view,  have 
strengthened  that  lack  of  individuality  and  personalit}'  which 
were  rooted  in  the  nature  and  history  of  the  Tsar's  subjects, 
and  quite  wiped  out  any  power  of  initiative  they  may  have 
possessed.  I  will  admit  too,  that,  as  regards  social  matters, 
the  necessaril}'  superficial  nature  of  such  forced  cultivation 
may  have  produced  a  dangerous  division  between  the  upper 
and  the  lower  classes  of  society,  the  former  becoming  im- 
pregnated with  those  Western  habits  and  ideas,  to  which 
the  latter  remained  obstinately  impervious.  And  finally, 
from  the  political  point  of  view,  I  will  confess  that  the 
sudden  introduction  of  a  foreign  form  of  Government  may 
have  prevented  the  organisation  thus  imposed  on  the  country 
from  harmonising  with  the  natural  tendencies  and  aspirations 
of  the  nation.  All  this,  and  a  great  deal  more,  1  am  willing 
to  concede,  I  will  go  so  far  as  to  say,  with  Custine — who, 
in  this  respect,  has  the  exceptional  good  fortune  of  agreeing 
with  a  Russian  writer,  the  poet  and  historian  Soumarokof, 
whose  later  days  brought  a  revulsion  against  his  original  and 
ojjtimist  view — that  it  was  no  very  brilliant  victor}'  to  'con- 
vert men  who  did  not  wear  powder  into  brutes  covered  with 
flour,'  and  to  turn  'bears  into  monkeys!'^  I  will  say,  with 
Levesque,  that  the  idea  of  endeavouring  to  reconcile  in- 
dustrial, commercial,  and  intellectual  jjrogress,  with  the  aggra- 
vation of  the  serf  s)'stem,  was  most  unfortunate.  Joseph  de 
Maistre  has  declared,  'that  men  must  crawl  to  knowledge, 
it  cannot  be  attained  b)'  flight.'  I  will  grant  this  too.  Numa, 
the  philosopher  further  observes,  never  dreamt  of  cutting  the 
skirts  of  the  Roman  toga,  and  no  mistake  can  be  greater 
than  to  attempt  to  reform  a  people  by  means  which  betray 
a  lack  of  the  respect  cK:e  to  it.  To  this  I  am  read)-  to  agree. 
Koslomarof  himself,  in  sj^ite  of  his  enthusiasm,  confesses  that 

1  ('usiine,  La   himir,   Paris,  1843,  vol.    iii.    p.   382.      Souiiiarokuf,  Der  Eiste 
AiifstanJ der  Stieliiz^n  (Kiya,   1772J,  p,  15. 


PETER  THE  GREAT'S  LAST  WILL— CONCLUSION     559 

the  method  whereby  the  national  hero  sought  to  force  his 
reforms  upon  his  people — the  lash,  the  axe,  the  tearing  out 
of  nostrils — was  not  that  best  fitted  to  arouse,  in  the  hearts 
and  minds  of  his  subjects,  those  feelings  and  ideas,  that  civic 
courage,  and  honour,  and  sense  of  duty,  most  likely  to  aid 
in  acclimatising  his  work  in  Russia.  And  here  again,  I  side 
with  Kostomarof,  and  against  Peter. 

But,  does  not  all  this  amount,  in  fact,  to  an  assertion  that 
it  would  have  been  better  for  Russia  if  there  had  been  no 
Tartar  invasion  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  if  the  countiy 
had  been  left  free,  during  those  which  followed,  to  work  out 
its  own  civilisation,  quietly  and  undisturbed  ? 

As  for  those  '  seeds  of  original  culture '  which  Peter's  re- 
form is  held  by  those  who  contemn  him  to  have  overlooked, 
and  even  destroyed,  this  question  is  much  like  that  of 
Russian  art,  as  seen  in  the  buildings  of  the  Russian  Kreml. 
All  discussion,  archaeological  and  aesthetic,  is  checked  b}'  the 
difficult}'  of  discovering  any  original  architectural  or  orna- 
mental features,  side  by  side  with  those  numerous  instances 
in  which  form  and  decoration  have  been  more  or  less  evi- 
dently borrowed  from  Byzantine  or  Roman  Art,  from  that 
of  Ancient  Greece,  of  the  German  Middle  Ages,  or  of  the 
Italian  Renaissance.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  Reformer 
can  be  accused  of  any  considerable  waste  of  any  very  pre- 
cious material.  A  certain  historian  blames  Peter  severely 
for  having  done  away  with  Ordin  Nashtchokin's  system  of 
administrative  autonomy.^  But  was  this  autonomy — which 
was,  moreover,  exceedingly  restricted  and  ephemeral  in  its 
application  and  existence — a  \evy  Russian  product?  Was 
not  Ordin  Nashtchokin  himself,  even  in  those  early  days,  a 
lover  of  the  West?  And  further,  how  can  Peter  fairly  be 
accused  of  having  repudiated  this  legacy  from  a  period  which 
had  only  just  elapsed  ?  He  began  by  making  it  the  corner- 
stone of  his  own  building  !  He  may  not,  perhaps,  have  de- 
rived every  desirable  benefit  from  its  use,  but  was  that  likely.-' 
Nashtchokin's  experience  does  not  lead  us  to  that  conviction. 
And  putting  that  aside,  what  essential  point  can  lie  be  said 
to  have  slighted  or  suppressed  ?  He  never  disturbed  the 
Sainodierjavu',  and  the  only  change  he  made  in  his  Tc/ii- 
iiovniks  was  to  dress  them  in  luu'opcan  garb. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  net  cost  of  his  reforms  greatl\' 

'  Goltsef,  1.1110$  ti/ni  Customs,  St.  Petersburg,  1896,  .iddeiula,  p.  22. 


/ 
/ 


56o  PETER  THE  GREAT 

exceeded  their  value.  They  did  indeed  cost  dear.  In  a 
country  where  the  usual  rate  of  payment  did  not  exceed  four 
copecks  a  day — twelve  roubles  a  year — the  yearly  tax  sud- 
denly rose  to  one  rouble  per  head  for  the  whole  population. 
And  this  money  tax  was  the  li^^htest  of  the  burdens  the 
j)Cople  had  to  bear.  In  1 70S,  40,000  men  were  sent  to  the 
building  work  at  St.  Petersburg.  Every  one,  or  almost 
every  one,  seems  to  have  perished  at  the  task,  for,  in  the 
following  year,  a  fresh  and  equally  numerous  levy  of 
labourers  was  called  for.  In  17 10,  only  3000  fresh  work- 
men were  demanded,  but,  in  171 1,  a  first  levy  of  6000  men 
became  necessary  :  this  was  followed  by  another  of  40,000, 
and,  in  17 13,  this  last  levy  was  again  repeated.  These 
labourers,  until  they  disappeared  into  the  pestilential 
marshes  which  lay  all  round  the  new  capital,  each  re- 
ceived half  a  rouble  a  month.  They  lived  on  the  country, 
some  of  them  by  begging,  and  others  by  absolute  robbery. 
Meanwhile,  the  army  swallowed  up  a  goodly  number  of 
human  lives.  In  1701,  all  insolvent  debtors  were  delivered 
over  to  the  recruiting  officers^creditors  might  lose -their 
money,  but  the  country  gained  soldiers.  In  1703,  all 
peasants,  who  were  owned  by  officials  or  merchants,  were 
ordered  to  send  QVQvy  fifth  man  to  the  army.  In  1705,  in 
the  month  of  January,  one  recruit  was  levied  on  every 
twenty  houses  ;  the  same  thing  took  place  in  the  month 
of  February.  There  was  another  levy  again  in  the  month 
of  December,  besides  a  levy  of  dragoons  on  the  relations  of 
the  Chancery  officials.  To  sum  it  up,  taxation  rose,  in  the 
course  of  the  great  reign,  in  the  proportion  of  three  to  one, 
and  the  diminution  of  the  population  was  calculated  at 
twenty  per  cent.^  This  does  not  allow  for  the  terrible 
holocaust  offered  up  on  the  altar  of  civilisation,  in  the 
prisons  and  torture-chambers  of  Preobrajenskoie,  on  the 
Red  Square  at  Moscow,  and  in  the  dungeons  of  the 
fortress  of  St.  Peter  and  St  Paul. 

But  Russia  has  paid  the  price,  and  what  Russian,  looking 
at  the  results  acquired,  would  now  desire  to  cancel  the  san- 
guinary bargain  and  convention,  between  his  ancestors  and 
their  terrible  despot?  The  country  paid,  and,  in  1725,  it 
was  none  the  poorer.  Vov  forty  years,  until  the  accession 
of  Catherine  II.,  the  great  Spendthrift's  successors  lived  on 
^  .Milioukof,  p.  244,  etc. 


PETER  THE  GREAT'S  LAST  WILL— CONCLUSION     561 

his  inheritance,  and  Peter  lll.'s  widow  found  means,  out  of 
the  residue,  to  make  a  figure  in  Europe  which  will  not  be 
swiftly  forgotten. 

Again, — and  this,  of  all  the  criticisms  on  Peter's  work,  is  the 
one  which  moves  me  most. — That  work  may  have  been  con- 
ceived, I  will  admit  it,  from  an  exclusively  utilitarian  point 
of  view,  without  due  respect  to  the  other  and  nobler  elements 
of  culture  and  civilisation.  The  Russia  of  Peter  the  Great  is 
a  factory  and  a  camp, — she  is  not  the  focus  of  light  and  heat, 
whence  the  noblest  discoveries,  and  the  most  brilliant  researches, 
in  science  and  art,  beam  on  the  world,  shedding  those  noble 
influences  which  do  honour  to  the  history  of  other  nations, 
and  are  their  greatest  claims  to  glory.  And  I  think  that  the 
pessimistic  view  of  the  Slavophile  party  has  been  prompted 
by  this  consideration,  suggested,  in  1764,  to  Betski,  who 
collaborated  with  Catherine  in  artistic  matters,  and  pon- 
dered over,  in  later  days,  by  Shtcherbatof  Peter  made  his 
Russians  a  nation  of  officials,  of  labourers  and  of  soldiers  ; 
not,  in  any  sense,  a  nation  6f  thinkers  and  of  artists.  Prac- 
tical and  matter-of-fact  as  he  himself  was,  in  the  most 
eminent  degree,  he  taught,  or  tried  to  teach  them,  the  use  of 
the  improved  weapons  he  gave  them  ;  he  taught  them 
to  read  and  count,  but  he  never  attempted  to  inspire  them 
with  splendid  impulses  of  heart  or  mind,  with  the  pursuit  of 
any  humanitarian  ideal,  of  the  worship  of  beauty,  nor  even 
with  instincts  of  kindness  or  of  pity.  But  this,  on  reflection, 
may  possibly  appear  natural,  and  consequently  justifiable. 
Those  historical,  geographical,  and  climatic  conditions  to 
which  I  have  previously  referred,  as  having  surrounded  the 
birth  and  development  of  Russia,  have  made  her  existence 
one  perpetual  warfare.  Without  natural  frontier,  and  under 
a  most  inclement  sky,  the  country  has  struggled,  and  does 
still  struggle,  with  a  special  coalition  of  hostile  elements, 
with  men  and  things,  with  neighbouring  nations,  and  with 
great  Nature  herself,  for  the  defence  of  her  soil,  and  the 
security  of  her  daily  bread.  The  development  thus  attained, 
b\'  the  most  pett)'  of  all  instincts,  that  of  self-preservation 
and  the  preponderance  acquired  by  material  cares,  may 
easily  be  understood.  To  this  has  been  added  a  tendency 
to  physical  indolence  and  mental  torpor,  followed  by  sudden 
fits  of  fierce  combativeness,  the  natural  result  of  long  periods 
of  unavoidable  inacti\it\-.      In  this  mould  Peter  and  his  work 


562  PETER  THE  GREAT 

were  cast.  In  his  own  way  he  was  a  great  idealist.  lie 
sacrificed  everything  else,  to  his  dream  of  a  Russia  not  only 
capable  of  defending  and  increasing  her  material  patrimon)', 
but  worth}',  some  day,  to  claim  the  intellectual  inheritance  of 
Italy  and  Greece.  It  was  only  a  dream.  Reality  soon 
forced  him  back  into  the  original  mould,  into  the  fight  for 
existence, — and  a  fighter  he  remained, — his  chief  and  inevit- 
able anxiety,  to  provide  himself  and  his  people  with  muscles 
and  weapons,  for  \\ork  and  warfare. 

Will  this  mould  be  ever  broken  ?  The  most  clear-sighted 
prophets  have  so  frequently  failed  to  forecast  the  destiny 
of  the  great  Empire,  that  I  will  not  attempt  to  follow 
their  example.  Europe,  so  far,  is  neither  Rejjublican  nor 
Cossack.  Before  that  comes  about,  modern  Russia  may 
perchance  have  realised  the  desire  of  her  great  creator, 
and  borrowed  the  only  real  and  indestructible  elements  of 
European  power  and  greatness. 


Juvc  i4fh,  iS;)6. 


THE   END 


A 


D.  APPLETON  &   CO.'S  PUBLICATIONS. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  NAVY, 
from  1775  to  1894.  By  Edgar  Stanton  Maclay,  A.  M.  With 
Technical  Revision  by  Lieut.  Roy  C  Smith,  U.  S.  N.  In  two  vol- 
umes. With  numerous  Maps,  Diagrams,  and  Illustrations.  8vo.  Cloth, 
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historical  literature." — Ne-w  York  Observer. 

"While  the  author  has  had  the  assistance  of  Lieut.  Roy  C.  Smith,  U.  S.  N.,  in 
preparing  those  parts  of  his  work  which  are  necessarily  technical,  he  has  wisely're- 
frained  from  confusing  the  general  reader  by  an  undue  parade  of  technicalities. 
The  narrative  proceeds  in  a  clear,  concise,  and  vigorous  style,  which  very  materially 
adds  to  the  character  of  the  work." — New  York  Journal  0/  Commerce. 

"  The  author  writes  as  one  who  has  digged  deep  before  he  began  to  write  at  all. 
He  thus  appears  as  a  master  of  his  material.  This  book  inspires  immediate  confidence 
as  well  as  interest." — New  York  Times. 

"A  most  conscientious  narrative,  from  which  wise  statesmen  may  learn  much  for 
their  guidance,  and  it  certainly  is  one  of  absorbing  interest." — AVw  York  Commercial 
Advertiser. 

"Mr.  Maclay  is  specially  qualified  for  the  work  he  has  undertaken.  Nine  years 
has  hed  evoted  to  thetask.  The  result  of  hisl  abors  possesses  not  only  readableness 
but  authority.  .  .  .  Mr.  Maclay's  story  may  be  truthfully  characterized  as  a  thrilling 
romance,  which  will  interest  every  mind  that  is  fed  by  tales  of  heroism,  and  will  be  read 
with  patriotic  pride  by  every  true  American." — Chicago  Evening  Post. 

"  A  more  valuable  and  important  work  of  history  than  this  has  not  been  issued  from 
the  pre^^s  for  many  a  day.  It  is  not  only  that  this  book  tells  a  story  never  before  told 
I  for  Cooper's  works  never  professed  to  tell  the  whole  story  of  our  navy,  even  down  to 
his  own  day ),  but  that  it  is  told  with  true  historic  sense,  and  with  the  finest  critical  acu- 
men."— A'ew  York  Evangelist. 

"  A  work  which  is  destined  to  fill  a  noticeable  gap  in  our  national  annals." — Phila- 
delphia Bulletin. 

"  No  better  excuse  for  this  important  work  could  be  desired  than  that  a  navy  with 
such  a  brilliant  career  on  the  whole  as  has  the  American  navy  is  without  a  full  and  con- 
tinuous record  of  its  achievement.  .  .  .  The  author  has  important  new  facts  to  tell, 
and  he  tells  them  in  a  clear  and  graceful  literary  style." — Hart/ord  Post. 

"  Mr.  Maclay  has  desei'vedly  won  for  himself  an  enviable  place  among  our  Amer- 
ican historians.  .  .  .  His  researches  have  been  exhaustive  and  his  inquiries  persistent, 
and  he  has  used  his  wealth  of  material  with  a  proper  appreciation  of  historical  value." 
— Boston  Advertiser. 

"  Like  the  average  young  American,  this  author  has  an  enthusiastic  appreciation  of 
Americnn  valor  on  the  high  seas,  and  he  reproduces  grapliic  sketches  of  battle  scenes 
and  incidents  in  a  way  to  insure  for  his  book  a  hearty  welcome  on  the  part  of  these 
who  keenly  enjoy  this  sort  of  literature.  .  .  .  The  illustrations  of  the  old  battle  ships 
and  the  conflicts  at  sea,  made  memorable  as  long  as  the  history  of  the  American 
Republic  shall  live,  add  much  to  the  attractiveness  of  this  book.  .  .  .  Professor  Maclay 
has  added  a  substantial  work  to  historical  American  literature." — Philadelphia  Tele- 
graph. 

"  It  fills  a  place  which  has  almost  escaped  the  attention  of  historians.  Mr.  Maclay's 
work  shows  on  every  page  the  minute  care  with  which  he  worked  up  his  theme.  His 
style  is  precise  and  clear,  and  without  any  pretense  of  rhetorical  embellishment." — 
New  York  Tribune. 


New  York  :  D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  72  Fifth  Avenue. 


T 


D.   APPLETON   &   CO.'S   PUBLICATIONS. 

HE  PRESIDENTS  OE  THE  UNITED  STATES, 
1789-1894.  By  John  Fiske,  Carl  Schurz,  William  E. 
Russell,  Daniel  C.  Gilman,  William  Walter  Phelps, 
Robert  C.  Winthrop,  George  Bancroft,  John  Hay,  and 
Others.  Edited  by  General  James  Grant  Wilson.  With  23 
Steel  Portraits,  facsimile  Letters,  and  other  Illustrations.  8\o. 
Cloth,  $3.50. 

"A  book  which  everyone  should  read  over  and  over  again.  .  .  .  We  have  caic- 
(ully  run  through  it,  and  laid  it  down  with  the  feeling  that  some  such  book  ought  to 
find  its  way  into  every  household." — A'ew  I'orA  Herald. 

"  A  monumental  volume,  which  no  American  who  cares  for  the  memory  of  the  pub- 
lic men  of  his  country  can  afford  to  be  without." — New  York  Mail  and  Express. 

"Just  the  sort  of  book  that  the  American  who  wishes  to  fix  in  his  mind  the  vary- 
ing phases  of  his  country's  history  as  it  is  woven  on  the  warp  of  the  administrations 
will  find  most  useful.  Everything  is  presented  in  a  clear-cut  way,  and  no  pleasanter 
excursions  into  history  can  be  found  than  a  study  of  '  The  Presidents  of  the  United 
States.'  ''—Philadelphia  Press. 

"  A  valuable  addition  to  both  our  biographical  and  historical  literature,  and  meets 
a  want  long  recognized." — Boston  Advertiser. 

"  So  scholarly  and  entertaining  a  presidential  biography  has  never  before  appeared 
in  this  country.  .  .  .  It  is  bound  to  become  the  standard  of  its  kind." — Dinghamton 
Herald. 

"  It  is  precisely  the  book  which  ought  to  have  a  very  wide  i-ale  in  this  country — a 
book  which  one  needs  to  own  rather  than  to  read  and  lay  aside.  No  common-school 
library  or  collection  of  books  for  young  readers  should  be  without  it." — The  Church- 
man. 

"  General  Wilson  has  performe  I  a  public  service  in  presenting  this  volume  to  the 
public  in  so  attractive  a  shape.  It  is  full  of  incentive  to  ambitious  youth  ;  it  abounds 
in  encouragement  to  every  patriotic  heart." — Charleston  News  and  Courier. 

"  There  is  an  added  value  to  this  volume  because  of  the  fact  that  the  story  of  the 
life  of  each  occupant  of  the  White  House  was  written  by  one  who  made  a  special  study 
of  him  and  his  times.  ...  An  admirable  history  for  the  young." — Chicago  Times. 

"  Such  a  work  as  this  can  not  fail  to  appeal  to  the  pride  of  patriotic  Americans." — 
Chicago  Dial. 

"  These  names  are  in  themselves  sufficient  to  guarantee  adequacy  of  treatment  and 
interest  in  the  presentation,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  such  succinct  biographies  of  tho 
complete  portrait  gallery  of  our  Presidents,  written  with  such  unquestioned  ability, 
have  never  before  been  published." — Hartford  Courant. 

"  A  book  well  worth  owning,  for  reading  and  for  reference.  ...  A  complete  rec- 
ord of  the  most  important  events  in  our  history  during  the  past  one  hundred  and  five 
years. " —  The  Outlook. 


New  York  :  D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,   72  Fiftli  Avenue. 


D.   APPLETON   &   CO.'S    PUBLICATIONS. 


H 


JOHN  BACH   MC MASTER. 


I  STORY  OF  THE  PEOPLE  OF 
THE  UNITED  STATES,  from  the 
Revolution  to  the  Civil  War.  By  John 
Bach  McMaster.  To  be  completed  in 
six  volumes.  Vols.  I,  II,  III,  and  IV 
now  ready.  8vo.  Cloth,  gilt  top,  $2.50 
each. 

"...  Prof.  McMaster  has  told  us  what  no  other  his- 
torians have  told.  .  .  .  The  skill,  the  animation,  the 
brightness,  the  force,  and  the  charm  with  which  he  arrays 
the  facts  before  us  are  such  that  we  can  hardly  conceive  of 
more  interesting  reading  for  an  American  citizen  who 
cares  to  know  the  nature  of  those  causes  which  have  made 
not  only  him  but  his  environment  and  the  opportunities 
life  has  given  him  what  they  are." — N.  Y.  Times. 
"  Those  who  can  read  between  the  lines  may  discover  in  these  pages  constant 
evidences  of  care  and  skill  and  faithful  labor,  of  which  the  old-time  superficial  essayists, 
compiling  librarj'  notes  on  dates  and  striking  events,  had  no  conception  ;  but  to  the 
general  reader  the  fluent  narrative  gives  no  hint  of  the  conscientious  labors,  far-reach- 
ing world-wide,  vast  and  yet  microscopically  minute,  that  give  the  strength  and  value 
which  are  felt  rather  than  seen.  This  is  due  to  the  art  of  presentation.  The  author's 
position  as  a  scientific  workman  we  may  accept  on  the  abundant  testimony  of  the 
experts  who  know  the  solid  worth  of  his  work  ;  his  skill  as  a  literary  artist  we  can 
all  appreciate,  the  charm  of  his  style  being  self-evident." — Philadelphia  Telegraph. 

"The  third  volume  contains  the  brilliantly  written  and  fascinating  story  of  the 
progress  and  doings  of  the  people  of  this  country  from  the  era  of  the  Louisiana  pur- 
chase to  the  opening  scenes  of  the  second  war  with  Great  Britain— say  a  period  of  ten 
years.  In  everv  page  of  the  book  the  reader  finds  that  fascinating  flow  of  narrative, 
that  clear  and  lucid  style,  and  that  penetrating  power  of  thought  and  judgment  which 
distinguished  the  previous  volumes." — Columbus  State  yournal. 

"  Prof.  McMaster  has  more  than  fulfilled  the  promises  made  in  his  first  volumes, 
and  his  work  is  constantly  growing  better  and  more  valuable  as  he  brings  it  nearer  to 
our  own  time.  His  style  is  clear,  simple,  and  idiomatic,  and  there  is  just  enough  of 
the  critical  spirit  in  the  narrative  to  guide  the  reader." — Boston  Herald. 

"  Take  it  all  in  all,  the  History  promises  to  be  the  ideal  American  history.  Not  so 
much  given  to  dates  and  battles  and  great  events  as  in  the  fact  that  it  is  like  a  great 
panorama  of  the  people,  revealing  their  inner  life  and  action.  It  contains,  with  all 
its  sober  facts,  the  spice  of  personalities  and  incidents,  which  relieves  every  page  from 
dullness." — Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

"  Histor>'  written  in  this  picturesque  style  will  tempt  the  most  heedless  to  read. 
Prof.  McMaster  is  more  than  a  stylist ;  he  is  a  student,  and  his  History  abounds  in 
evidences  of  research  in  quarters  not  before  discovered  by  the  historian." — Chicago 
Tribune. 

"  A  History  sui generis  which  has  made  and  will  keep  its  own  place  in  our  litera- 
ture."— New  York  Evening  Post. 


New  York:  D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  72  Fifth  Avenue. 


D.  APPLETON  &  CO.'S  PUBLICATIONS. 

r^ ERMAN V  AND  THE  GERMANS.     By  W ii  i.i a m  H a k- 

^-^     BUTT  Dawson,  author  of"  German  Socialism  and  l-'erdinand  Lassalle," 
"  Prince  Bismarck  and  State  Socialism,"  etc.    2  vols.,  8vo.    Cloth,  $6.00. 

"  This  excellent  work— a  literarj-  monument  of  intellif^ent  and  conscientious  labor 
—deals  with  every  phase  and  aspect  of  state  and  political  activity,  public  and  private, 
in  the  I  atlierland.  .  .  .  Teems  with  entertaining  anecdotes  and  introspective  aperi;us 
of  character." — London  Tcle^rap/i. 

"  With  Mr.  Dawson's  two  volumes  before  him,  the  ordinarj'  reader  may  well  dis- 
pense with  the  perusal  of  previous  autiiorities.  .  .  .  His  work,  on  the  whole,  is  com- 
prehensive, conscientious,  and  eminently  fair." — London  Chronicle. 

"  Mr.  Dawson  has  made  a  remarkably  close  and  discriminating  study  of  German 
life  and  institutions  at  the  present  day,  and  the  results  of  his  observations  are  set  iorth 
in  a  most  interesting  manner." — Brooklyn  Times. 

"  There  is  scarcely  any  phase  of  German  national  life  unnoticed  in  his  comprehen- 
sive survey.  .  .  .  Mr.  Dawson  has  endeavored  to  write  from  the  view-point  of  a  sincere 
yet  candid  well-wisher,  of  an  unprejudiced  observer,  who,  even  when  he  is  unable  to 
approve,  speaks  his  mind  in  soberness  and  kindness."— i\>w  York  Sun. 

"  There  is  much  in  German  character  to  admire  ;  much  in  Germany's  life  and  insti- 
tutions from  which  Americans  may  learn.  William  Harbutt  Dawson  has  succeeded  in 
making  this  fact  clearer,  and  his  work  will  g(5  far  t(j  help  Americans  and  Germans  to 
know  each  other  better  and  to  respect  each  other  more.  .  .  .  It  is  a  remarkable  and  a 
fascinating  work." — Chicago  Evening  Post. 

"  One  of  the  very  best  works  on  this  subject  which  has  been  published  up  to  date." 
— yew  York  Herald. 


A 


HISTORY  OF  GERMANY,  from  the  Earliest  Times 
to  the  Present  Day.  By  Bayard  Taylor.  With  an  Additional  Chap- 
ter by  Marie  Hansen-Taylor.  With  Portrait  and  Maps.  i2mo. 
Cloth,  Si-50. 

"There  is,  perhaps,  no  work  of  equal  size  in  any  language  which  gives  a  better 
view  of  the  tortuous  course  of  German  liisUjry.  Now  that  the  story  of  a  race  is  to  be 
in  good  earnest  a  story  of  a  nation  as  well,  it  begins,  as  every  one,  whether  German  or 
foreign,  sees,  to  furnish  unexpected  and  wonderful  lessons.  But  these  can  only  be 
understood  in  the  light  of  the  past.  Taylor  could  end  his  work  with  the  birth  of  the 
Empire,  but  the  additional  narrative  merely  foreshadows  the  events  of  the  future.  It 
may  be  that  all  the  doings  of  the  past  ages  on  German  soil  are  but  the  introduction  of 
what  is  to  come.  That  is  certainly  the  thought  which  grows  upon  one  as  he  peruses 
this  volume." — New  York  Tribune. 

"  When  one  considers  the  confused,  complicated,  and  sporadic  elements  of  German 
history,  it  seems  scarcely  possible  to  present  a  clear,  continuous  narrative.  Vet  this  is 
what  Bayard  Taylor  did.  He  omitted  no  episode  of  importance,  and  yet  managid  to 
preserve  a  main  line  in  connection  from  century  to  century  throughout  the  narrative." 
— Philadelphia  Ledger. 

"  A  most  excellent  short  history  of  Germany.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Taylor  has  done  well  the 
work  she  reluctantly  consented  to  undertake.  Her  story  is  not  only  clearly  told,  but 
told  in  a  style  that  is  quite  consistent  with  that  of  the  we)rk  which  she  completes.  .  .  . 
Asa  matter  of  course  the  hi.-tory  excels  in  its  literary  st>le.  Mr.  Taylor  could  not 
have  written  an  unentertaining  book.  This  book  arouses  interest  in  its  opening  chap- 
ter and  maintains  it  to  the  very  end." — Xeiv  York  Times. 

"  Probably  the  best  work  of  its  kind  adapted  for  school  purposes  that  can  be  had 
in  English." — Boston  Herald. 


New  York :  D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  72  Fifth  Avenue. 


MOF*^»TT     «Nnror%p/>nU^'"""  LIBRARY 

J/\N     2  1968 


FEB    4  1968 


U.C^  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


CDDlD73SDb 


